More Fun Facts About Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California is well known for many things, such as celebrities, beautiful weather, the Hollywood sign and heavy traffic. Here are some facts about the city of angels you may not know.

For starters, the “city of angels”, as LA has been nicknamed, literally means “Los Angeles” in Spanish.

Los Angeles welcomes over 24-million visitors every year and provides them with a fantastic vacation. The five counties that make up the Los Angeles area consist of around 20 million people. These counties consist of Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, Ventura, and San Bernadino.

The city started with 44 people, or 14 families, back in 1781, who lived in what was then called “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de la Porciuncula”, or the “Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angeles of the Small Portion”, later shortened to Los Angeles.

If these five counties were a state, the state would be the fourth largest in the USA.

The original “Bay Watch” TV show originated here, along the miles of beaches LA has to offer.

The bird of paradise is the city flower, and the coral tree is the city tree.

Oil was discovered near what is now Dodger Stadium in the year 1892, and by 1923 Los Angeles produced one quarter of the world’s oil. It is still situated over one of the thrid largest oil fields in the country.

Los Angeles boasts more than 80 stage theaters and 300 museums, more than any other city in the US.

Despite the lush image the city portrays, with palm trees and water everywhere, the area is actually more like a desert with only about 15 inches of rain falling yearly. However, when it does rain, expect a downpour. In 1926, a rain gauge in the San Gabriel Mountains collected an inch of rain in one minutes time, and in 1978 almost a foot of rain fell in just 24-hours.

If you are into strange shopping venues, the LA coroner’s office has a gift shop.

If you ever wondered why the film industry is located in Los Angeles, you can thank Thomas Edison. Mr. Edison, who lived in New Jersey, held most of the country’s film patents. The makers of the films wanted to avoid Edison’s property claims, so they moved west to get away and ended up in the city of angels.

The city of Beverly Hills was once a small lima bean ranch, and the Santa Monica Pier was built to protect a sewage pipe that disposed of sewage into the ocean.

The Hollywood sign read “Hollywoodland” when it was built. It was erected to advertise the newest real estate development in 1923.

The famous Getty museum has beautifully manicured lawns, thanks to the goats that are let loose every spring to do some landscape work.

Hollywood’s Forever Cemetery is the resting place for many of the most famous actors, actresses, directors and writers, among others, from the world of entertainment. One of the most famous of gravestones belongs to the beloved Mel Blanc, and it reads simply “That’s All Folks”.

Filed under: Traveling by Michelle Gushard
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