Los Angeles (original name: Ciudad de la Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles sobra la Porzionucola de AsÃs), is the biggest city in California and the second one in the United States. Together with New York and Chicago is one of the three most important metropolis in the country and its economic, cultural and scientific importance is famous worldwide.
It became a city on April, the 4th of 1850, and it is the chief town of the homonym county. Los Angeles sprawls across the thousand square miles of a great desert, knitted together by an intricate network of freeways between the ocean and the mountains. Sometimes this misture of landscapes and its colourful shopping streets together with their palm trees and swimming pools could seem surreal.
LA is a young city.The first-time visitor may well find Los Angeles thrilling and threatening at the same time; in Los Angeles it's the city that guides you, wheter you want or don't. While it has its fine-art museums, Californian cuisine and a few old-fashioned urban plazas, what people really come here for is to experience the city that has come to embody the American Dream, that's to say the fantasy worlds of Disneyland and Hollywood, as well as the luxury of Beverly Hills and Malibu.
Modern myth associates Los Angeles with movies and movie stars, but L.A. is also a culturally modern city that offers many interesting attractions from prestigious art museums and galleries to theaters. Extensive collections at the J. Paul Getty Center and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are only two examples of what you can drop in on. Families will not want to miss the Zoo or the action at Universal Studios Hollywood. Of course, no trip to L.A. would be complete without a stop at the Venice Beach Boardwalk or a visit to Mann's Chinese Theater and the Walk of Fame.