Los Angeles Travel Guide

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The European Missionaries
Like other parts of the United States, the Los Angeles area has been inhabited for millennia by Native American tribes who migrated here from Siberia.

In 1542, the first Europeans came to the California coasts. That's when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed to find a passage to Asia. In 1602, Captain Sebastián Vizcaíno laid anchor on the island of Santa Catalina, after which it would take 166 years before the next Europeans arrived.

Thus, the first real permanent European presence was in 1769, when the Spanish under the leadership of Gaspar de Portolà colonized the Californian area from the south. The group of about 60 people spent the night in the deserted landscape by a river, and the area's character and potential for cultivation appealed to them: Here the basis for a real urban development was present.

The Catholic missionary Juan Crespi called the river El Rio de Nuestra Señora la Reyna de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, meaning the River to Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula, and in this way the city got its later name.

Spanish cities, settlers and Mexico
In 1771, the Spaniards founded the Mission Church of San Gabriel in the area and later followed Spanish colonists from Mexico. They were to establish new cities in the name of the Spanish king. It was in 1781 that 12 families arrived and named their new city by the nearby river. The city's name was shortened to Ciudad de Los Angeles.

Spanish dominance gradually weakened, and from 1821 Los Angeles became part of independent Mexico. For this reason, there was no major development in the area, and it was a small town that, after the US-Mexico War of 1846-1847, came on American hands with the rest of California. This happened formally in 1850.

Part of the United States of Growth
In 1876, the railroad came to Los Angeles when Southern Pacific built a line from Tuscon in Arizona. The route continued to San Francisco, giving the city a central location for passenger and freight transportation. Over a decade, Los Angeles, among other things, exported oranges to the eastern United States.

In the 1880s, several cities were founded and established as part of Los Angeles; Hollywood, among others, emerged on the grounds of a ranch. The city flourished and by 1890 the population was 50,000.

In 1892, oil was found in the Los Angeles area, and in the following decades production increased to significant quantities, making Los Angeles an even more significant city for the United States economy.

Beginning of the 20th Century
In dry California, water was a scarce resource. Greater urban development required an increase in water supplies. It happened in 1913, when Irish William Mulholland completed the 400-mile aqueduct from the Owens Valley in central California to Los Angeles. The water supply led to a larger expansion of Los Angeles' area in 1915.

Tinseltown and industrial development
In the roaring 1920s, more and more movie companies established themselves in the neighborhoods of Hollywood, and Los Angeles quickly became the center of the American film industry nicknamed Tinseltown. Large theaters shot up, and cultural life flourished in tandem with the great role films and movie stars have been playing ever since this beginning.

The 1920s were also the years in which Los Angeles attracted the rapidly growing civilian and military aviation industry, which over time has been a major locomotive of California's boom as a high-tech industrial area, centered in Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, among others.

The city was gradually a million and its administration was established in impressive new buildings, not least the 1928 City Hall, and just four years later, the city became the world's focus, as the Olympic Games were held here.

Disneyland with more development
Hollywood and the Olympics were not alone in creating the city's entertainment. In 1955, Walt Disney opened the beloved Disneyland theme park in suburban Anaheim, and it has been a model for many other parks in and outside Los Angeles ever since.

The city's growth was unstoppable with a boom in population from year to year. Around 1960, 2.5 million people lived here in the now very sprawling urban area, which was very different from neighborhood to neighborhood.

The city's problems with a large poor group of unemployed and run-down central housing districts in 1965 culminated in the six-day Watts uprising that turned the city's streets into a fighting ground.

The Olympics to today
In 1984, Los Angeles hosted the Olympic Summer Games for the second time, and at the United States hosted the World Cup in soccer 10 years later, Los Angeles again added grass and stadium.

The 1990s became a time when Los Angeles again drew many headlines. The streets rioted in 1992 after the outcome of a lawsuit, and two years later, the city was hit by a powerful earthquake whose epicenter was in the city's vicinity.

In recent decades, large sums have been invested in developing not least Central Downtown and Hollywood's traditional main street, Hollywood Boulevard. It has created a great cultural boom in art, music, architecture and also for Los Angeles' dream factories, where many films have been created over the years.

Today, Los Angeles is the United States second largest urban area with its more than ten million inhabitants, and there are activities 24 hours a day for visitors to the entertainment industry, the beaches and the beautiful nature of the western United States.
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