Los Angeles

Los Angeles (often shortened as LA or L.A.) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, 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,

and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3.87 million residents within the city limits as of 2025, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind New York City, and the largest city in the Western United States. The city has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18 million residents.

Covering about 469 square miles (1,210 km2), the majority of the city proper lies in the Los Angeles Basin 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 is the third-most visited city in the U.S. (after New York and Miami), with over 3.6 million visitors as of 2023.