Los Angeles County is one of the originalcounties of California, created at the time of statehood in 1850.[8] The county originally included parts of what are nowKern,San Bernardino,Riverside,Inyo,Tulare,Ventura, andOrange counties. In 1851 and 1852, Los Angeles County stretched from the coast to the state line ofNevada.[9] As the population increased, sections were split off to organize San Bernardino County in 1853, Kern County in 1866, and Orange County in 1889.
Before the 1870s, Los Angeles County was divided into townships (many of which were amalgamations of one or moreold ranchos):[10]
Los Nietos – consisted of areas south of the Whittier Narrows andPuente Hills south to present-dayLong Beach, centered on the early settlement at Los Nietos. Some of this area is now in Orange County
The historical boundaries of Los Angeles County since its establishment in 1850 as defined by theCalifornia State Legislature. The solid blue line represents the original boundaries of the county, the dashed blue lines represent the changes made to the boundaries, and the red line represents the final major boundary changes of the county made by the Legislature in 1889. This map does not include minor changes to the boundary after 1922, such as the transfer of a small amount land east ofInterstate 5 toKern County, among others. Portions or the entirety of modern-dayInyo, Kern,Orange,Riverside,San Bernardino,San Diego, andVentura counties were formerly in Los Angeles County.
The Northern part of the county has aDesert climate, while the rest of the county generally is a mix ofsemi-arid and a hot-summerMediterranean climate. There is rainfall mostly in the wintertime, but the mountains in the north-central part of the county have snow during winter.[15]
The county has a large population ofAsian Americans, being home to the largest numbers ofBurmese,Cambodian,Chinese,Filipino,Indonesian,Korean,Sri Lankan,Taiwanese, andThai outside their respective countries.[37] The largest Asian groups in Los Angeles County are 4.0% Chinese, 3.3% Filipino, 2.2% Korean, 1.0% Japanese, 0.9% Vietnamese, 0.8% Indian, and 0.3% Cambodian.
45.9% of the population reported speaking only English at home; 37.9% spoke Spanish, 2.22%Tagalog, 2.0% Chinese, 1.9%Korean, 1.87%Armenian, 0.5%Arabic, and 0.2%Hindi.[38]
Los Angeles County is home to the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia.[39] It also accommodates the largestIranian population outside of Iran of any other county or county equivalent globally.[40]
Percent of households with incomes above $150k across LA County census tracts
This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(March 2024)
In 2019, the median household income in the county was $72,797.[41]
The median personal earnings for all workers 16 and older in Los Angeles County are $30,654, slightly below the US median; earnings, however vary widely by neighborhood, race and ethnicity, and gender.[42] The median household income was $42,189 and the median family income was $46,452. Males had a median income of $36,299 versus $30,981 for females. The per capita income for the county was $20,683. There are 14.4% of families living below the poverty line and 17.9% of the population, including 24.2% of under 18 and 10.5% of those over 64.Los Angeles County has the highest number of millionaires of any county in the nation, totaling 261,081 households as of 2007.[43]
The homeownership rate is 47.9%, and the median value for houses is $409,300. 42.2% of housing units are in multi-unit structures. Los Angeles County has the largest number ofhomeless people, with "48,000 people living on the streets, including 6,000veterans," in 2010.[44]As of 2017[update] the number of homeless people in the county increased to nearly 58,000.[45]
In 2015, there were over two thousandChristian churches, the majority of which are Catholic.[46][47] Roman Catholic adherents number close to 40% of the population. There were 202 Jewishsynagogues, 145Buddhist temples, 38 Muslimmosques, 44Baháʼí Faith worship centers, 37Hindu temples, 28Tenrikyo churches and fellowships, 16Shinto worship centers, and 14 Sikhgurdwaras in the county.[48] TheRoman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has approximately 5million members and is the largest diocese in the United States. In 2014, the county had 3,275 religious organizations, the most out of all US counties.[49]
The county's voters elect a governing five-memberLos Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The small size of the board means each supervisor represents over 2million people. The board operates in a legislative, executive, andquasi-judicial capacity. As a legislative authority, it can pass ordinances for the unincorporated areas (ordinances that affect the whole county, like posting of restaurant ratings, must be ratified by the individual city). As an executive body, it can tell the county departments what to do, and how to do it. As a quasi-judicial body, the Board is the final venue of appeal in the local planning process, and holds public hearings on various agenda items.
As of 2020, the Board of Supervisors oversees a $35.5billion annual budget and over 112,000 employees.[51] The county government is managed on a day-to-day basis by a chief executive officer and is organized into many departments, each of which is enormous in comparison to equivalent county-level (and even many state-level) departments anywhere else in the United States. Some of the larger or better-known departments include:
The Grand Avenue entrance of theStanley Mosk Courthouse
Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs – offers consumers in the county a variety of services including: consumer and real estate counseling, mediation, and small claims counseling investigates consumer complaints, real estate fraud and identity theft issues. The department also provides small business certifications and helps entrepreneurs navigate the process of opening a business.
Los Angeles County Superior Court - The primary trial court for Los Angeles County, handling civil, criminal, family, and probate cases.
Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services – administers foster care
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health – administers public health programs including STD programs, smoking cessation, and restaurant inspection. The cities ofLong Beach andPasadena have their own autonomous Public Health departments assuming county functions, and county public health orders are not applicable in those cities.
Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services – administers many federal and state welfare programs
TheLos Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, despite its name, isnot a County department. Technically it is a state-mandated county transportation commission that also operates a large bus and rail system in the county.
On November 4, 2008, Los Angeles County was almost evenly split overProposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. The county voted for the amendment 50.04% with a margin of 2,385 votes.[59]
The Los Angeles County Superior Court is the county's court of general jurisdiction, while theU.S. District Court for the Central District of California may hear cases where federal jurisdiction is present. Both are headquartered in a large cluster of government buildings in the city's Civic Center.
Historically, the courthouses were county-owned buildings that were maintained at county expense, which created significant friction since the trial court judges, as officials of the state government, had to lobby the county Board of Supervisors for facility renovations and upgrades. In turn, the state judiciary successfully persuaded the state Legislature to authorize the transfer of all courthouses to the state government in 2008 and 2009 (so that judges would have direct control over their own courthouses). Courthouse security is still provided by the county government under a contract with the state.
Unlike the largest city in the United States,New York City, all of the city of Los Angeles and most of its important suburbs are located within a single county. As a result, both the county superior court and the federal district court are respectively the busiest courts of their type in the nation.[60][61]
Many celebrities have been seen in Los Angeles courts. In 2003, the television showExtra (based in nearbyGlendale) found itself running so many reports on the legal problems of local celebrities that it spun them off into a separate show,Celebrity Justice.
Employment by industry in Los Angeles County (2015)
Los Angeles County is commonly associated with the entertainment and digital media industry; all fivemajor film studios—Paramount Pictures,Sony Pictures,Warner Bros.,Universal Pictures, andWalt Disney Studios—are located within the county. Numerous other major industries also define the economy of Los Angeles County, including international trade supported by thePort of Los Angeles and thePort of Long Beach, music recording and production, aerospace and defense, fashion, and professional services such as law, medicine, engineering and design services, financial services.[73] High-tech sector employment within Los Angeles County is 368,500 workers,[74] and manufacturing employment within Los Angeles County is 365,000 workers.[75][76] Despite a business exodus fromDowntown Los Angeles since theCOVID-19 pandemic, the city's urban core is evolving as a cultural center with the world's largest showcase of architecture designed byFrank Gehry.[77]
The following major companies have headquarters in Los Angeles County:
The Los Angeles County Office of Education provides a supporting role for school districts in the area. The county office also operates two magnet schools, theInternational Polytechnic High School andLos Angeles County High School for the Arts. There are a number of private schools in the county, most notably those operated by theRoman Catholic Archdiocese. The county's public education sector is run by numerous school districts with theLos Angeles Unified School District being the largest one running public schools primarily within the city of Los Angeles and its immediately neighboring cities.
Venice Beach is a popular attraction whoseMuscle Beach used to attract throngs of tourists admiring "hardbodies". Today, it is more arts-centered. Santa Monica's pier is a well known tourist spot, famous for itsFerris wheel and bumper car rides, which were featured in the introductory segment of the television sitcomThree's Company. Further north inPacific Palisades one finds the beaches used in the television seriesBaywatch.[80] The fabledMalibu, home of many film and television stars, lies west of it.
In the mountain, canyon, and desert areas one may findVasquez Rocks Natural Area Park, where many old Westerns were filmed.Mount Wilson Observatory in theSan Gabriel Mountains is open for the public to view astronomical stars from its telescope, now computer-assisted. Many county residents find relaxation in water skiing and swimming atCastaic Lake Recreation Area – the county's largest park by area – as well as enjoying natural surroundings and starry nights atSaddleback Butte State Park in the easternAntelope Valley – California State Parks' largest in area within the county. TheCalifornia Poppy Reserve is located in the western Antelope Valley and shows off the State's flower in great quantity on its rolling hills every spring.
Los Angeles is a major freight-railroad transportation center, largely due to the large volumes of freight moving in and out of the county's sea port facilities. The ports are connected to the downtown rail yards and to the main lines ofUnion Pacific andBurlington Northern Santa Fe headed east via a grade-separated, freight rail corridor known as theAlameda Corridor.
The county's two main seaports are thePort of Los Angeles and thePort of Long Beach. Together they handle over a quarter of allcontainer traffic entering the United States, making the complex the largest and most important port in the country, and the third-largest port in the world by shipping volume.
The Port of Los Angeles is the largest cruise ship center on theWest Coast, handling more than 1million passengers annually.
The Port of Long Beach is home to theSea Launch program, which uses a floating launch platform to insert payloads into orbits that would be difficult to attain from existing land-based launch sites.
^"2010 Census Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. August 22, 2012.Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. RetrievedSeptember 26, 2015.
^"CityNews".toronto.citynews.ca. February 26, 2023.Archived from the original on February 26, 2023. RetrievedFebruary 26, 2023.
^abWaldinger, Roger; Bozorgmehr, Mehdi (eds.)Ethnic Los Angeles Russell Sage Foundation, 1996, p. 87. "Within Los Angeles County itself, the process of ethnic change took place at an even more rapid pace. Between 1960 and 1990, the Hispanic percentage jumped from 11 to 36 and the Asian percentage from 2 to 11."
^abFrom 1944 through 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau categorized people from the Middle East or North Africa as White.
^Mid-decade Census U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962, p. 209. (Out of a total of 6,038,771 people, 5,453,866 or 90.31% were White. Note that in the 1960 census, Hispanics were counted as Whites.)
^Mid-decade Census U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962, p. 209. (Out of a total of 6,038,771 people, 461,546 or 7.64% were Black or African Americans.)
^Race of the Population by County: 1970 U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975, p. 7. (Out of a total of 7,032,075 people, 24,509 or 0.35% were Native Americans.)
^Mid-decade Census U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962, p. 209. (Out of a total of 6,038,771 people, 8,109 or 0.13% were Native Americans.)
^Segal, Elizabeth; Emerling, Jennifer (May 9, 2018)."A Haven for the Homeless".U.S. News & World Report.Archived from the original on May 10, 2018. RetrievedMay 9, 2018.
^"Los Angeles County".crcc.usc.edu. September 16, 2009.Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. RetrievedOctober 9, 2020.
^U.S. Census Bureau. American Community Survey, 2011 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table B02001.U.S. Census websiteArchived December 27, 1996, at theWayback Machine. Retrieved October 26, 2013.
^abHiggins, Lila; Pauly, Gregory B. M (2019).Wild L.A.: Explore the Amazing Nature in and Around Los Angeles. Timber Press.ISBN978-1604697100.
^Horton, Sue (May 24, 2005). "Stop, look, listen, count; Nothing matters to speed birders except tallying as many species as possible in 24 hours".Los Angeles Times. pp. F1.
^Encyclopedia.comArchived January 18, 2012, at theWayback Machine, "Dole gets ready to turn first shovel of headquarters dirt: plans are set to go to Westlake Village City Council". (Dole Food Co. Inc.Los Angeles Business Journal. January 31, 1994. Retrieved on September 27, 2009.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.svg)
.jpg)
