Lucks Spiral Mixers Los Angeles

Los Angeles,^[a] often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California. With an estimated 3,820,914 residents within the city limits as of 2023,^[8] It is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind only New York City; it is also the commercial, financial and cultural center of Southern California. Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 12.8 million people (2023). Greater Los Angeles, which includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.3 million residents.

The majority of the city proper lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km²),^[6] and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022.^[17] It is the third-most visited city in the U.S. with over 2.7 million visitors as of 2023.^[18]

The area that became Los Angeles was originally inhabited by the indigenous Tongva people and later claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542. The city was founded on September 4, 1781, under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve, on the village of Yaanga.^[19] It became a part of the First Mexican Empire in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and became part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood. The discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city.^[20] The city was further expanded with the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which delivers water from Eastern California.

Los Angeles has a diverse economy with a broad range of industries. Despite a steep exodus of film and television production since the COVID-19 pandemic,^[21] Los Angeles is still one of the largest hubs of American film production,^[22][23] the world's largest by revenue; the city is an important site in the history of film. It also has one of the busiest container ports in the Americas.^[24][25][26] In 2018, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had a gross metropolitan product of over $1.0 trillion,^[27] making it the city with the third-largest GDP in the world, after New York and Tokyo. Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984, and will also host in 2028. Despite a business exodus from Downtown Los Angeles since the COVID-19 pandemic, the city's urban core is evolving as a cultural center with the world's largest showcase of architecture designed by Frank Gehry.^[28]

On September 4, 1781, a group of 44 settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'.^[29] The original name of the settlement is disputed; the Guinness Book of World Records rendered it as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula";^[30] other sources have shortened or alternate versions of the longer name.^[31]

The local English pronunciation of the name of the city has varied over time. A 1953 article in the journal of the American Name Society asserts that the pronunciation /lɔːs ˈændʒələs/ lawss AN-jəl-əs was established following the 1850 incorporation of the city and that since the 1880s the pronunciation /loʊs ˈæŋɡələs/ lohss ANG-gəl-əs emerged from a trend in California to give places Spanish, or Spanish-sounding, names and pronunciations.^[32] In 1908, librarian Charles Fletcher Lummis, who argued for the name's pronunciation with a hard g (/ɡ/),^[33][34] reported that there were at least 12 pronunciation variants.^[35] In the early 1900s, the Los Angeles Times advocated for pronouncing it Loce AHNG-hayl-ais (/loʊs ˈɑːŋheɪleɪs/), approximating Spanish [los ˈaŋxeles], by printing the respelling under its masthead for several years.^[36] This did not find favor.^[37]

Since the 1930s, /lɔːs ˈændʒələs/ has been most common.^[38] In 1934, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed that this pronunciation be used by the federal government.^[36] This was also endorsed in 1952 by a "jury" appointed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron to devise an official pronunciation.^[32][36]

Common pronunciations in the United Kingdom include /lɒs ˈændʒɪliːz, -lɪz, -lɪs/ loss AN-jil-eez, -⁠iz, -⁠iss.^[39] Phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis described the most common one, /lɒs ˈændʒɪliːz/ ^ⓘ, as a spelling pronunciation based on analogy to Greek words ending in -‍es, "reflecting a time when the classics were familiar if Spanish was not".^[40]

The settlement of Indigenous Californians in the modern Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley was dominated by the Tongva (now also known as the Gabrieleño since the era of Spanish colonization). The historic center of Tongva power in the region was the settlement of Yaanga (Tongva: Iyáangẚ), meaning "place of the poison oak", which would one day be the site where the Spanish founded the Pueblo de Los Ángeles. Iyáangẚ has also been translated as "the valley of smoke".^{[41][42][43][44][19]}

Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542, while on an official military exploring expedition, as he was moving northward along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.^[45] Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769.^[46]

In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area.^[47] On September 4, 1781, a group of 44 settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo (town) they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, 'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'.^[29] The present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or (New Spain) settlers were mestizo or mulatto, a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry.^[48] The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents.^[49] Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.^[50]

New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo now existed within the new Mexican Republic. During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles the regional capital of Alta California.^[51] By this time, the new republic introduced more secularization acts within the Los Angeles region.^[52] In 1846, during the wider Mexican-American war, marines from the United States occupied the pueblo. This resulted in the siege of Los Angeles where 150 Mexican militias fought the occupiers which eventually surrendered.^[53]

Mexican rule ended during following the American Conquest of California, part of the larger Mexican-American War. Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847.^[54] The Mexican Cession was formalized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ceded Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California to the United States.

(Sourced by wikipedia.com)