英语介绍 洛杉矶
Los Angeles—often known simply as L.A. or informally as the City of Angels—is the largest city in the state of California and the second-largest in the United States. As of the 2005 U.S. Census estimate, the city had a population of 3.8 million. The city is the core cultural and economic center of the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana metropolitan area with a population of 12.9 million.[1]
Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850—five months before California achieved statehood—and is the county seat of Los Angeles County. The city has a global presence as a center of culture, science, and higher education. Los Angeles is arguably the world's leading producer of popular entertainment—such as motion pictures, television, and recorded music—which gives a great boost to its international fame.
Los Angeles is also one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world—it is home to people from virtually every nation on Earth. The city has hosted two Olympic Games—in 1932 and 1984—and is home to world-renowned scientific and cultural institutions. People have long been attracted to the world-class city for its balmy weather, unique and vibrant lifestyle, laid-back energy, Pacific Rim Gateway status, and the hope of realizing the "American Dream."
History
Main article: History of Los Angeles, California
The Los Angeles coastal area was inhabited by the Tongva (or Gabriele?os), Chumash, and earlier Native American peoples for thousands of years. The Spanish arrived in 1542, when Juan Cabrillo visited the area.
In 1769, Gaspar de Portolà led an expedition across southern California with Franciscan Padres Junípero Serra and Juan Crespi. Father Crespi had picked out a site along the river for a mission, but in 1771 Father Serra had the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel built near Whittier Narrows. After a 1776 flood, the mission was moved to its present site in San Gabriel.
Olvera Street.On September 4, 1781 44 Mexican settlers set out from the San Gabriel Mission to establish a town at Crespi's site. The town was named El Pueblo de Nuestra Se?ora la Reina de los ?ngeles de la Porciuncula, ("The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the 'little portion'"). It remained a small ranch town for decades. Today the outline of the Pueblo is preserved in a Historic Monument familiarly called Olvera Street.
Mexico's independence from Spain was achieved in 1821, but the greatest change took place in present-day Montebello after the Battle of Rio San Gabriel in 1847, which decided the fate of Los Angeles. Americans gained control after they flooded into California during the Gold Rush and secured the subsequent admission of California into the United States.
Los Angeles was incorporated as a city in 1850. Railroads arrived when the Southern Pacific completed its line to Los Angeles in 1876. Oil was discovered in 1892, and by 1923 Los Angeles was supplying one-quarter of the world's petroleum.
Even more important to the city's growth was water. In 1913, William Mulholland completed the aqueduct that assured the city's growth and led to the annexation by the City of Los Angeles, starting in 1915, of dozens of neighboring communities without water supplies of their own. A largely fictionalized account of the Owens Valley Water War can be found in the 1974 motion picture Chinatown.
In the 1920s the motion picture and aviation industries both flocked to Los Angeles and helped to further develop it. The city was the proud host of the 1932 Summer Olympics which brought along the development of Baldwin Hills, the original Olympic Village. World War II brought new growth and prosperity to the city, although many of its Japanese-American residents were transported to internment camps for the duration of the war. This period also saw the arrival of the German exiles, who included such notables as Thomas Mann, Fritz Lang, Bertolt Brecht and Lion Feuchtwanger. The postwar years saw an even greater boom as urban sprawl expanded into the San Fernando Valley.
The Watts riots in 1965 showed the nation the deep racial divisions that the city faced. The ARPANET (the Internet's ancestor) was born in Los Angeles. In 1969, the first ARPANET transmission was sent from UCLA to SRI in Menlo Park. The XXIII Olympiad was successfully hosted in Los Angeles in 1984. The city was once again tested by the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake and a city-wide vote on San Fernando Valley and Hollywood secession was defeated in 2002. Now, urban redevelopment and gentrification have been taking place at a furious pace in various parts of the city, most notably Downtown, which is poised to be the home of many more cultural and entertainment institutions than ever before.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km?)—469.1 square miles (1,214.9 km?) of it is land and 29.2 square miles (75.7 km?) of it is water. The total area is 5.86% water.
The extreme north-south distance is 44 miles (71 km), the extreme east-west distance is 29 miles (47 km), and the length of the city boundary is 342 miles (550 km). The land area is the 9th largest in the Continental United States (excluding Juneau, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii).
The highest point in Los Angeles is Sister Elsie Peak (5,080 feet) at the far reaches of the northeastern San Fernando Valley, part of Mt. Lukens. The Los Angeles River is a largely seasonal river flowing through the city, with headwaters in the San Fernando Valley. Its length is almost entirely lined in concrete.
The Los Angeles area is remarkably rich in native plant species. With its beaches, dunes, wetlands, hills, mountains, and rivers, the area contains a number of important biological communities. The largest area is coastal sage scrub, which covers the hillsides in combustible chaparral. Native plants include: California poppy, matilija poppy, toyon, coast live oak, giant wild rye grass, and hundreds of others. Unfortunately, many native species are so rare as to be endangered, such as the Los Angeles sunflower.
There are many exotic flowers and flowering trees that are blooming year-round, with subtle colors, including the jacaranda, hibiscus, phlox, bougainvillea, coral tree blossoms and bird of paradise. If there were no city here, flower-growing could still flourish as an industry, as it does in Lompoc. Wisteria has been known to grow to house-lot size, and in Descanso Gardens there are forests of camellia trees. Orchids require special attention in this Mediterranean climate.
Like most areas of California, Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes, due to its proximity to the San Andreas Fault, as well as to the smaller San Jacinto and Banning faults in southern California. The most recent major earthquake was the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which was centered in the northern San Fernando Valley. Coming less than two years after the 1992 riots, the Northridge earthquake was an emotional shock to Southern Californians, and caused physical damage totalling billions of dollars. Other major earthquakes in the Los Angeles area include the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, and the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Nevertheless, most earthquakes are relatively minor. Many residents of Los Angeles feel one or two minor earthquakes per year, which do little or no damage. Imperceptible quakes are detected by seismometers on a daily basis.
The city is divided into many neighborhoods, many of which were towns that were annexed by the growing city. There are also several independent cities in and around Los Angeles, but they are popularly grouped with the city of Los Angeles by most people since they lie mostly in Los Angeles County and are thus very intertwined. Generally, the city is divided into the following areas: Downtown, East L.A., South Los Angeles, the South Bay/Harbor, Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire (or Mid City), the Westside (which includes West Los Angeles as well as the cities of Santa Monica and West Hollywood), and the San Fernando Valley. Recently in the last ten years, "Eastside" has appeared as a new designation to contrast with the more traditional "Westside" description (though many Angelenos reject the term as a trendy East Coast import). Some well-known communities of Los Angeles include Venice Beach, the Downtown financial district, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Hollywood, Hancock Park,Koreatown, and the very affluent areas of Bel-Air, Westwood, and Brentwood.
The city is situated in a Mediterranean climate or subtropical zone, experiencing mild, reasonably dry winters and warm to hot, dry summers. Generally the weather is warm and dry in all seasons, with 325 days of sunshine a year. Breezes from the Pacific Ocean tend to keep the beach communities of the Los Angeles area cooler in summer and warmer in winter than those further inland, and summer temperatures can sometimes vary by as much as 25 degrees warmer in the inland communities compared to that of the coastal communities. The coastal communities of Los Angeles are commonly affected by a phenomenon known as a 'marine layer', a dense cloud cover caused by the proximity of the ocean, that helps keep the temperatures cooler throughout the year. Temperatures in the summer can get well over 90 °F (32 °C), but average summer daytime highs are 85 °F (29 °C), with overnight lows of 66 °F (18 °C). Winter daytime high temperatures will get up to around 70 °F (21 °C), on average, with overnight lows of 48 °F (8 °C) and during this season rain is a possibility. The median temperature in January is 58.3 °F (14.6 °C) and 74.3 °F (23.5 °C) in July. The highest temperature recorded within city borders was 116.0 °F (46.7 °C) in Canoga Park in 1985; the lowest temperature recorded was 18.0 °F (?7.8 °C) in 1989, also in Canoga Park. The highest temperature ever recorded for Downtown Los Angeles was 112.0 °F (44.4 °C) on June 26, 1990, and the lowest temperature ever recorded was 28.0 °F (?2.2 °C) on January 4, 1949. Rain occurs mainly in the winter and spring months (February being the wettest month) with great variations in storm severity year by year. Los Angeles averages 15 inches (381 mm) of precipitation per year. It rarely snows in the city basin, but the mountains slopes within city limits typically receive snow every year. With weather permitting, it is possible to snow ski and surf on the same day in the Los Angeles area.