Guide to Los Angeles

About Los Angeles
Los Angeles has filled the world with its paraphernalia. From Disneyland to movie stars, TV, fast-food and hype - it's all here in overdrive. Los Angeles may sound like something from your imagination, but if you long to stand in the footsteps of stars and breathe their hallowed air, you've come to the right place.

Starlit and moonstruck, LA intrigues many curious tourists, hopeful starlets and wanna-be rock musicians each day. But LA is more than the sum total of its mass-produced fantasies. It is a thriving hybrid, a conglomeration of 88 independent neighbouring cities sprawling over a vast urban maelstrom.

No other city studies itself with such narcissistic intensity. If you are not prepared to embrace the dream, you are likely to find it filthy, irritating, frightening or just plain dumb. In this town, game show hosts are household names and nobodies erect billboard shrines to themselves.

Most first-time visitors to LA are instantly confused by its size and sprawl. Unlike other metropolises like New York or Paris, LA is a decentralized hodgepodge with no clearly defined hub. It helps to know that what is commonly referred to as 'LA' is really 'LA County', a conglomeration of 88 cities of which LA is just one. The heart of the city of Los Angeles is Downtown, about 19 kilometers (12 mi) east of the ocean and hemmed in by the I-10, I-5 and US 101.

East LA, a Latino-dominated area, edges against Downtown, as do the historically African-American neighbourhoods of South Central. Most areas of interest to visitors are west of Downtown LA, including Hollywood and the epicentre of gay and lesbian culture, West Hollywood. Farther west is lifestyles of the rich and famous territory: Bel Air, Brentwood and Beverly Hills. Hugging the northern country coast are the posh beachside areas of Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica. Farther south along the coast is Venice, with the international airport farther again. The Hollywood Hills, a continuation of the Santa Monica Mountains, are a physical and (some might say) ideological separation between Los Angeles 'proper' and the San Fernando Valley, which forms the northern boundary of LA County. This quintessential suburbia is characterized by unsightly strip malls and major TV and movie studios. Orange County, home of Disneyland, extends along the coast to the southeast of Los Angeles County.

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