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98-817: The organization was founded in 2008 in Los Angeles , by several college students who learned about the international water crisis and wanted to make a difference. In 2012, Thirst Project pledged to bring clean water to the entire Kingdom of eSwatini by 2022. While most of Thirst Project's efforts are focused in the Kingdom of eSwatini, they are also operating in India , Uganda , El Salvador and Kenya . Thirst Project recently collaborated with Minerva Model United Nations founded by Arsh Arora and Yash Maheshwari. As of February 2021, Thirst Project had another collaboration, this time with Key Club International to encourage

196-605: A gross metropolitan product of over $ 1.0 trillion, 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 . On September 4, 1781,

294-698: A cement plant in Monolith, California , which could produce 1,200 barrels of Portland cement per day. Regrinding mills were also built and operated by the city at the tufa quarries. To move 14 million ton-miles of freight, the city contracted with Southern Pacific to build a 118 mile long rail system from the Monolith mills to Olancha. The number of men who were on the payroll the first year was 2,629 and this number peaked at 6,060 in May 1909. In 1910, employment dropped to 1,150 due to financial reasons but rebounded later in

392-538: A diverse economy with a broad range of industries. Despite a steep exodus of film and television production since the COVID-19 pandemic , Los Angeles is still one of the largest hubs of American film production , 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. In 2018, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had

490-614: 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';. 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 "; other sources have shortened or alternate versions of

588-652: A large project as the Colorado River Aqueduct despite the fact that they had built the Los Angeles Aqueduct. After the collapse, the pace of annexation came to a rapid halt when eleven nearby cities including Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, San Marino, Santa Monica, Anaheim, Colton, Santa Ana, and San Bernardino decided to form the Metropolitan Water District with Los Angeles. The city's growth following

686-425: A profit; the other, according to an analysis of contemporary newspaper reports, was the 1932 Summer Olympics , also held in Los Angeles. Racial tensions erupted on April 29, 1992, with the acquittal by a Simi Valley jury of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers captured on videotape beating Rodney King , culminating in large-scale riots . In 1994, the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook

784-622: A series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. 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. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum

882-507: A single type, where industrial uses were prohibited. The proscriptions included barns, lumber yards, and any industrial land use employing machine-powered equipment. These laws were enforced against industrial properties after the fact. These prohibitions were in addition to existing activities that were already regulated as nuisances. These included explosives warehousing, gas works, oil drilling, slaughterhouses, and tanneries . Los Angeles City Council also designated seven industrial zones within

980-607: A trend in California to give places Spanish, or Spanish-sounding, names and pronunciations. In 1908, librarian Charles Fletcher Lummis , who argued for the name's pronunciation with a hard g ( / ɡ / ), reported that there were at least 12 pronunciation variants. In the early 1900s, the Los Angeles Times advocated for pronouncing it Loce AHNG-hayl-ais ( / l oʊ s ˈ ɑː ŋ h eɪ l eɪ s / ), approximating Spanish [los ˈaŋxeles] , by printing

1078-496: A viable farming community. Clauses in the city's charter originally stated that the city could not sell or provide surplus water to any area outside the city, forcing adjacent communities to annex themselves into Los Angeles. The aqueduct's infrastructure also included the completion of the St. Francis Dam in 1926 to provide storage in case of disruption to the system. The dam's collapse two years later killed at least 431 people, halted

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1176-438: Is Mount San Antonio , locally known as Mount Baldy, which reaches 10,064 feet (3,068 m). Further afield, the highest point in southern California is San Gorgonio Mountain , 81 miles (130 km) east of downtown Los Angeles, with a height of 11,503 feet (3,506 m). The Los Angeles River , which is largely seasonal, is the primary drainage channel . It was straightened and lined in 51 miles (82 km) of concrete by

1274-722: Is a common problem in this population. Although Serieys et al. 2014 find selection of immune genetics at several loci they do not demonstrate that this produces a real difference which helps the bobcats to survive future mange outbreaks . Los Angeles is subject to earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire . The geologic instability has produced numerous faults , which cause approximately 10,000 earthquakes annually in Southern California, though most of them are too small to be felt. The strike-slip San Andreas Fault system, which sits at

1372-452: Is complicated by rugged terrain, which has necessitated having different grids for each of the valleys that Los Angeles covers. Major streets are designed to move large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city, many of which are extremely long; Sepulveda Boulevard is 43 miles (69 km) long, while Foothill Boulevard is over 60 miles (97 km) long, reaching as far east as San Bernardino. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of

1470-477: Is disagreement over the actions of the " syndicate " as to whether they were a "diabolical" cabal or only a group that united the Los Angeles business community behind supporting the aqueduct, Eaton, Mulholland and others connected with the project have long been accused of using deceptive tactics and underhanded methods to obtain water rights and block the Bureau of Reclamation from building water infrastructure for

1568-437: Is divided into many different districts and neighborhoods, some of which had been separately incorporated cities that eventually merged with Los Angeles. These neighborhoods were developed piecemeal, and are well-defined enough that the city has signage which marks nearly all of them. The city's street patterns generally follow a grid plan , with uniform block lengths and occasional roads that cut across blocks. However, this

1666-502: Is expected to continue to drop in the coming years because of aggressive steps to reduce it, which include electric and hybrid cars, improvements in mass transit , and other measures. The number of Stage 1 smog alerts in Los Angeles has declined from over 100 per year in the 1970s to almost zero in the new millennium. Despite improvement, the 2006 and 2007 annual reports of the American Lung Association ranked

1764-488: Is rich in native plant species partly because of its diversity of habitats, including beaches, wetlands , and mountains. The most prevalent plant communities are coastal sage scrub , chaparral shrubland, and riparian woodland . Native plants include: the California poppy , matilija poppy , toyon , Ceanothus , Chamise , Coast Live Oak , sycamore , willow and Giant Wildrye . Many of these native species, such as

1862-567: 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

1960-413: The 1916 New York City Zoning Ordinance did. Second, the residential zones did not distinguish types of housing; they treated apartments, hotels, and detached-single-family housing equally. In 1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles, with 10 movie companies already operating in the city at the time. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in L.A. The money generated by

2058-805: The Army Corps of Engineers to act as a flood control channel. The river begins in the Canoga Park district of the city, flows east from the San Fernando Valley along the north edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, and turns south through the city center, flowing to its mouth in the Port of Long Beach at the Pacific Ocean. The smaller Ballona Creek flows into the Santa Monica Bay at Playa del Rey . Los Angeles

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2156-547: The Hillside Stranglers murder cases in 1977–1978. In early 1984, the city surpassed Chicago in population, thus becoming the second largest city in the United States. In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time . Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries , the 1984 Olympics became more financially successful than any previous, and the second Olympics to turn

2254-487: The Los Angeles sunflower , have become so rare as to be considered endangered. Mexican Fan Palms , Canary Island Palms , Queen Palms , Date Palms , and California Fan Palms are common in the Los Angeles area, although only the last is native to California, though still not native to the City of Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a number of official flora: The city has an urban population of bobcats ( Lynx rufus ). Mange

2352-728: The Mono Basin and fund the Mono Basin extension. The 105 mi (169 km) extension diverted flows from Rush Creek , Lee Vining Creek , Walker Creek, and Parker Creek that would have flowed into Mono Lake . The construction of the Mono extension consisted of an intake at Lee Vining Creek, the Lee Vining conduit to the Grant Reservoir on Rush Creek, which would have a capacity of 48,000 acre⋅ft (59,000,000 m ),

2450-567: The San Fernando Valley , with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km ), 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 . It is the third-most visited city in the U.S. with over 2.7 million visitors as of 2023. The area that became Los Angeles

2548-505: The respelling under its masthead for several years. This did not find favor. Since the 1930s, / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / has been most common. In 1934, the United States Board on Geographic Names decreed that this pronunciation be used by the federal government. This was also endorsed in 1952 by a "jury" appointed by Mayor Fletcher Bowron to devise an official pronunciation. Common pronunciations in

2646-504: The "San Fernando Syndicate" – including Fred Eaton, Mulholland, Harrison Otis (the publisher of The Los Angeles Times ), Henry Huntington (an executive of the Pacific Electric Railway ), and other wealthy individuals – were a group of investors who bought land in the San Fernando Valley allegedly based on inside knowledge that the Los Angeles aqueduct would soon irrigate it and encourage development. Although there

2744-593: The 12.7 mi (20.4 km) Mono Craters Tunnel to the Owens River , and a second reservoir, later named Crowley Lake with a capacity of 183,465 acre⋅ft (226,301,000 m ) in Long Valley at the head of the Owens River Gorge. Completed in 1940, diversions began in 1941. The Mono Extension has a design capacity of 400 cu ft/s (11,000 L/s) of flow to the aqueduct. However,

2842-507: The 20th century, Los Angeles substantially reduced the amount of housing that could be built by drastically downzoning the city. In 1960, the city had a total zoned capacity for approximately 10 million people. By 1990, that capacity had fallen to 4.5 million as a result of policy decisions to ban housing through zoning. Racial tensions led to the Watts riots in 1965, resulting in 34 deaths and over 1,000 injuries. In 1969, California became

2940-458: The Angels'. 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. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in

3038-552: The City of Los Angeles. Growth was so rapid that it appeared as if the city of Los Angeles would eventually assume the size of the entire county. William Mulholland continued adding capacity to the aqueduct, building the St. Francis Dam that would impound water creating the San Francisquito Reservoir, filed for additional water from the Colorado River, and began sending engineers and miners to clear

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3136-698: The First Aqueduct which was built entirely by Public Works, the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct was primarily built on contract by various private construction firms including R.A. Wattson Co., Winston Bros., and the Griffith Co. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power managed the project and performed some finishing construction on the Mojave conduit and Jawbone & Dove Spring pipelines. The 137-mile-long (220 km) aqueduct

3234-534: The Los Angeles Bureau of Water Works and Supply in 1929. The dam failure is the worst man-made flood disaster in the US in the 20th century and the second largest single-event loss of life in California history after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake . In an effort to find more water, the city of Los Angeles reached farther north. In 1930, Los Angeles voters passed a third US$ 38.8 million bond to buy land in

3332-629: The Los Angeles area include the 1933 Long Beach , 1971 San Fernando , 1987 Whittier Narrows , and the 1994 Northridge events. All but a few are of low intensity and are not felt. The USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast , which models earthquake occurrence in California. Parts of the city are also vulnerable to tsunamis ; harbor areas were damaged by waves from Aleutian Islands earthquake in 1946, Valdivia earthquake in 1960, Alaska earthquake in 1964, Chile earthquake in 2010 and Japan earthquake in 2011. The city

3430-502: The Los Angeles area was the headquarters of six of the country's major aircraft manufacturers ( Douglas Aircraft Company , Hughes Aircraft , Lockheed , North American Aviation , Northrop Corporation , and Vultee ). During the war, more aircraft were produced in one year than in all the pre-war years since the Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, combined. Manufacturing in Los Angeles skyrocketed, and as William S. Knudsen , of

3528-548: The Los Angeles region. 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. Mexican rule ended during following the American Conquest of California , part of the larger Mexican-American War . Americans took control from the Californios after

3626-685: The Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex, Los Angeles suffers from air pollution in the form of smog. The Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion , which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, shipping, manufacturing, and other sources. The smog season lasts from approximately May to October. While other large cities rely on rain to clear smog, Los Angeles gets only 15 inches (380 mm) of rain each year: pollution accumulates over many consecutive days. Issues of air quality in Los Angeles and other major cities led to

3724-635: The Mono Basin to 10,000 acre⋅ft (12.3 million m ) per year. In 1956, the State Department of Water Resources reported that Los Angeles was exporting only 320,000 acre-feet (390 million cubic metres) of water of the 590,000 acre⋅ft (730 million m ) available in the Owens Valley and Mono Basin. Three years later, the State Water Rights Board warned Los Angeles that they could lose rights to

3822-523: The National Defense Advisory Commission put it, "We won because we smothered the enemy in an avalanche of production, the like of which he had never seen, nor dreamed possible." After the end of World War II Los Angeles grew more rapidly than ever, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley . The expansion of the state owned Interstate Highway System during the 1950s and 1960s helped propel suburban growth and signaled

3920-696: The San Fernando Valley. Other hilly parts of Los Angeles include the Mt. Washington area north of Downtown, eastern parts such as Boyle Heights , the Crenshaw district around the Baldwin Hills , and the San Pedro district. Surrounding the city are much higher mountains. Immediately to the north lie the San Gabriel Mountains , which is a popular recreation area for Angelenos. Its high point

4018-764: The South Haiwee Reservoir. The flow then continues 115 miles (185 km) south through a series of pressure pipelines and concrete conduits where it connects with the First Aqueduct at the North Portal of the Elizabeth Tunnel near the Fairmont Reservoir. The San Francisquito Tunnels (which include the Elizabeth Tunnel) have a flow capacity of 1,000 cu ft/s (28,000 L/s) and are large enough to handle

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4116-527: The Southern Californian coast, is subject to a late spring/early summer weather phenomenon called " June Gloom ". This involves overcast or foggy skies in the morning that yield to sun by early afternoon. More recently, statewide droughts in California have further strained the city's water security . Downtown Los Angeles averages 14.67 in (373 mm) of precipitation annually, mainly occurring between November and March, generally in

4214-765: The Spanish founded the Pueblo de Los Ángeles . Iyáangẚ has also been translated as "the valley of smoke". 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. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí reached

4312-597: The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) in 1974 increased exports to 167,000 acre⋅ft (206 million m ) per year. These export levels severely impacted the region's fish habitat, lake level, and air quality, which led to a series of lawsuits. The results of the litigation culminated with a SWRCB decision to restore fishery protection (stream) flows to specified minimums, and raise Mono Lake to 6,391 feet (1,948 m) above sea level. The agreement limited further exports from

4410-990: The Terminal structure and Cascades. Water from the Terminal structure can then flow to either the Cascade or penstock to the Foothill Power Plant and into the Upper Van Norman Reservoir. In addition to the construction in the Northern and Southern sections, improvements were also made to the lined canal between the Alabama Gates and the North Haiwee Reservoir in the Northern Section that consisted of adding 24 in (610 mm) sidewalls to both sides of

4508-483: The United Kingdom include / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z , - l ɪ z , - l ɪ s / loss AN -jil-eez, -⁠iz, -⁠iss . Phonetician Jack Windsor Lewis described the most common one, / l ɒ s ˈ æ n dʒ ɪ l iː z / , as a spelling pronunciation based on analogy to Greek words ending in -‍es , "reflecting a time when the classics were familiar if Spanish

4606-552: The Upper Van Norman Reservoir. The Second Aqueduct was not built as a single contiguous conduit. For design and construction purposes the aqueduct was divided into Northern and Southern sections and the two are connected by the San Francisquito Tunnels, which are part of the First Aqueduct. The Northern Section carries water starting at the North Haiwee Reservoir through the Haiwee Bypass passing around

4704-873: The aqueduct diverts the Owens River into an unlined canal to begin its 233 mi (375 km) journey south to the Lower San Fernando Reservoir. This reservoir was later renamed the Lower Van Norman Reservoir . The original project consisted of 24 mi (39 km) of open unlined canal, 37 mi (60 km) of lined open canal, 97 mi (156 km) of covered concrete conduit, 43 mi (69 km) of concrete tunnels, 12.00 mi (19.31 km) steel siphons, 120 mi (190 km) of railroad track, two hydroelectric plants, three cement plants, 170 mi (270 km) of power lines, 240 mi (390 km) of telephone line, 500 mi (800 km) of roads and

4802-457: The aqueduct numerous times, and opened sluice gates to divert the flow of water back into Owens Lake . The lake has never been refilled, and is now maintained with a minimum level of surface water to prevent the introduction of dangerous, toxic lake-floor dust into the local community. In 1917, The Bureau of Los Angeles Aqueduct sought to build a holding reservoir to regulate flow and provide hydroelectric power and storage in case of disruption to

4900-465: The aqueduct system. The initial site chosen was in Long Valley along the Owens River, but Eaton, who had bought up much of the valley in anticipation of the need for a reservoir, refused to sell the land at the price offered by Los Angeles. Mulholland then made the decision to move the reservoir to San Francisquito Canyon above what is now Santa Clarita, California . The resulting St. Francis Dam

4998-438: The birthplace of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park . In 1973, Tom Bradley was elected as the city's first African American mayor, serving for five terms until retiring in 1993. Other events in the city during the 1970s included the Symbionese Liberation Army 's South Central standoff in 1974 and

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5096-499: The boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate , passes through the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The segment of the fault passing through Southern California experiences a major earthquake roughly every 110 to 140 years, and seismologists have warned about the next "big one", as the last major earthquake was the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake . The Los Angeles basin and metropolitan area are also at risk from blind thrust earthquakes . Major earthquakes that have hit

5194-428: The boundary of a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb on the coast, Csa otherwise). Daytime temperatures are generally temperate all year round. In winter, they average around 68 °F (20 °C). Autumn months tend to be hot, with major heat waves a common occurrence in September and October, while the spring months tend to be cooler and experience more precipitation. Los Angeles has plenty of sunshine throughout

5292-410: The canal and the raising of overcrossings. This work increased the capacity of the lined canal from 710 cu ft/s (20,000 L/s) to 900 cu ft/s (25,000 L/s) cfs. The increased flows provided by the second aqueduct lasted only from 1971 through 1988. In 1974 the environmental consequences of the higher exports were first being recognized in the Mono Basin and Owens Valley. This

5390-404: The city as the most polluted in the country with short-term particle pollution and year-round particle pollution. In 2008, the city was ranked the second most polluted and again had the highest year-round particulate pollution. The city met its goal of providing 20 percent of the city's power from renewable sources in 2010. The American Lung Association's 2013 survey ranks the metro area as having

5488-403: The city is 342 miles (550 km). Los Angeles is both flat and hilly. The highest point in the city proper is Mount Lukens at 5,074 ft (1,547 m), located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains at the north extent of the Crescenta Valley . The eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains stretches from Downtown to the Pacific Ocean and separates the Los Angeles Basin from

5586-414: The city of Los Angeles if the St. Francis Dam had not collapsed. The catastrophic failure of the St. Francis Dam in 1928 killed an estimated 431 people, flooded parts of Santa Clarita, and devastated much of the Santa Clara River Valley in Ventura County . The failure of the dam raised the question in a number of people's minds whether the city had engineering competence and capability to manage such

5684-402: The city's water department, at the time named The Bureau of Los Angeles Aqueduct, under the supervision of the department's Chief Engineer William Mulholland . The system delivers water from the Owens River in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains to Los Angeles . The aqueduct's construction was controversial from the start, as water diversions to Los Angeles eliminated the Owens Valley as

5782-450: The city, causing $ 12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths. The century ended with the Rampart scandal , one of the most extensive documented cases of police misconduct in American history. In 2002, Mayor James Hahn led the campaign against secession, resulting in voters defeating efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city. In 2022 , Karen Bass became the city's first female mayor , making Los Angeles

5880-420: The city. However, between 1908 and 1915, the Los Angeles City Council created various exceptions to the broad proscriptions that applied to these three residential zones, and as a consequence, some industrial uses emerged within them. There are two differences between the 1908 Residence District Ordinance and later zoning laws in the United States. First, the 1908 laws did not establish a comprehensive zoning map as

5978-522: The continued growth of the city. Because of clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent cities and communities felt compelled to join Los Angeles. Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones. The new ordinance established three residential zones of

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6076-414: The demise of the city's privately owned electrified rail system , once the world's largest. As a consequence of World War II, suburban growth, and population density, many amusement parks were built and operated in this area. An example is Beverly Park , which was located at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and La Cienega before being closed and substituted by the Beverly Center . In the second half of

6174-402: The difference between the average daily low and the average daily high is over 30 °F (17 °C). The average annual temperature of the sea is 63 °F (17 °C), from 58 °F (14 °C) in January to 68 °F (20 °C) in August. Hours of sunshine total more than 3,000 per year, from an average of 7 hours of sunshine per day in December to an average of 12 in July. Due to

6272-409: The drinking of 64 ounces of clean water each day. This collaboration was known as "Hydrate for 28." According to Thirst Project's website as of February 22, 2021, almost 500,000 people have been served by the funds raised by the organization and the students it works with. Over $ 10 million have been raised for the 13 countries the group works in. Thirst Project donates 100% of general donations to end

6370-481: The flow of both aqueducts. Once the combined flow reaches the penstocks above Power Plant #2, water is diverted into the Southern Section of the second aqueduct through the Drinkwater Tunnel to the Drinkwater Reservoir. The last segment of pipe, known as the Saugus Pipeline, carries water south past Bouquet Canyon , Soledad Canyon and Placerita Canyon in the city of Santa Clarita . From there it roughly parallels Sierra Highway before it enters Magazine Canyon near

6468-459: The flow was limited to 123 cu ft/s (3,500 L/s) due to the limited downstream capacity of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Full appropriation of the water could not be met until the second aqueduct was completed in 1970. From 1940 to 1970, water exports through the Mono Extension averaged 57,067 acre-feet (70 million cubic meters ) per year and peaked at 135,000 acre⋅ft (167 million m ) in 1974. Export licenses granted by

6566-407: The form of moderate rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall during winter storms. Rainfall is usually higher in the hills and coastal slopes of the mountains because of orographic uplift. Summer days are usually rainless. Rarely, an incursion of moist air from the south or east can bring brief thunderstorms in late summer, especially to the mountains. The coast gets slightly less rainfall, while

6664-645: The heading at the San Jacinto Tunnel that he knew was key to the construction of the Colorado River Aqueduct . The aqueduct's water provided developers with the resources to quickly develop the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles through World War II. Mulholland's role in the vision and completion of the aqueduct and the growth of Los Angeles into a large metropolis is recognized with the William Mulholland Memorial Fountain, built in 1940 at Riverside Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard in Los Feliz. Mulholland Drive and Mulholland Dam are both named after him. Many more cities and unincorporated areas would likely have annexed into

6762-418: The historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street , the oldest part of Los Angeles. 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 . By this time, the new republic introduced more secularization acts within

6860-435: The industry kept the city insulated from much of the economic loss suffered by the rest of the country during the Great Depression . By 1930, the population surpassed one million. In 1932, the city hosted the Summer Olympics . During World War II Los Angeles was a major center of wartime manufacturing, such as shipbuilding and aircraft. Calship built hundreds of Liberty Ships and Victory Ships on Terminal Island, and

6958-466: The inland and mountain areas get considerably more. Years of average rainfall are rare. The usual pattern is a year-to-year variability, with a short string of dry years of 5–10 in (130–250 mm) rainfall, followed by one or two wet years with more than 20 in (510 mm). Wet years are usually associated with warm water El Niño conditions in the Pacific, dry years with cooler water La Niña episodes. A series of rainy days can bring floods to

7056-575: The largest U.S. city to have ever had a woman as mayor. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games , making Los Angeles the third city to host the Olympics three times. The city of Los Angeles covers a total area of 502.7 square miles (1,302 km ), comprising 468.7 square miles (1,214 km ) of land and 34.0 square miles (88 km ) of water. The city extends for 44 miles (71 km) from north to south and for 29 miles (47 km) from east to west. The perimeter of

7154-514: The longer name. 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 / l ɔː s ˈ æ n dʒ əl ə s / lawss AN -jəl-əs was established following the 1850 incorporation of the city and that since the 1880s the pronunciation / l oʊ s ˈ æ ŋ ɡ əl ə s / lohss ANG -gəl-əs emerged from

7252-490: The lowest is 28 °F (−2 °C), on January 4, 1949. Within the City of Los Angeles, the highest temperature ever officially recorded is 121 °F (49 °C), on September 6, 2020, at the weather station at Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Woodland Hills . During autumn and winter, Santa Ana winds sometimes bring much warmer and drier conditions to Los Angeles, and raise wildfire risk. Owing to geography, heavy reliance on automobiles, and

7350-505: The lowlands and mudslides to the hills, especially after wildfires have denuded the slopes. Both freezing temperatures and snowfall are extremely rare in the city basin and along the coast, with the last occurrence of a 32 °F (0 °C) reading at the downtown station being January 29, 1979; freezing temperatures occur nearly every year in valley locations while the mountains within city limits typically receive snowfall every winter. The greatest snowfall recorded in downtown Los Angeles

7448-546: The mountainous terrain of the surrounding region, the Los Angeles area contains a large number of distinct microclimates , causing extreme variations in temperature in close physical proximity to each other. For example, the average July maximum temperature at the Santa Monica Pier is 70 °F (21 °C) whereas it is 95 °F (35 °C) in Canoga Park, 15 miles (24 km) away. The city, like much of

7546-640: The nation's worst smog, and fourth in both short-term and year-round pollution amounts. Los Angeles Aqueduct The Los Angeles Aqueduct system, comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct ( Owens Valley aqueduct ) and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct , is a water conveyance system, built and operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power . The Owens Valley aqueduct was designed and built by

7644-514: The passage of early national environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act . When the act was passed, California was unable to create a State Implementation Plan that would enable it to meet the new air quality standards, largely because of the level of pollution in Los Angeles generated by older vehicles. More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low-emission vehicles . Smog

7742-486: The present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel , the first mission in the area. 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

7840-604: The rapid pace of annexation, and eventually led to the formation of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to build and operate the Colorado River Aqueduct to bring water from the Colorado River to Los Angeles County . The continued operation of the Los Angeles Aqueduct has led to public debate, legislation, and court battles over its environmental impacts on Mono Lake and other ecosystems. The aqueduct project began in 1905 when

7938-411: The residents in Owens Valley, and creating a false sense of urgency around the completion of the aqueduct for Los Angeles residents. By the 1920s, the aggressive pursuit of water rights and the diversion of the Owens River precipitated the outbreak of violence known as the California water wars . Farmers in Owens Valley, following a series of unmet deadlines from LADWP, attacked infrastructure, dynamiting

8036-465: 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. The city was further expanded with the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, which delivers water from Eastern California . Los Angeles has

8134-563: The rest of the surrounding landscape. Most construction is done in separate units, rather than wall-to-wall . However, Downtown Los Angeles itself has many buildings over 30 stories, with fourteen over 50 stories, and two over 70 stories, the tallest of which is the Wilshire Grand Center . Los Angeles has a two-season semi-arid climate ( Köppen : BSh ) with dry summers and very mild winters, but it receives more annual precipitation than most semi-arid climates, narrowly missing

8232-408: The voters of Los Angeles approved a US$ 1.5 million bond for the 'purchase of lands and water and the inauguration of work on the aqueduct'. On June 12, 1907, a second bond was passed with a budget of US$ 24.5 million to fund construction. Construction began in 1908 and was divided into eleven divisions. The city acquired three limestone quarries, two Tufa quarries and it constructed and operated

8330-542: The water crisis. Their partners who pay their other expenses include: Los Angeles Los Angeles , 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 , 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

8428-425: The water they were permitted for but not appropriating. Faced with the possible loss of future water supply, Los Angeles began the five-year construction of the aqueduct in 1965 at a cost US$ 89 million. Once the city received diversion permits, water exports jumped in 1970, adding 110,000 AF that year into the aqueduct system. By 1974, exports climbed to 450,000 acre⋅ft (560 million m ) per year. Unlike

8526-635: The worst rush hour periods in the world, according to an annual traffic index by navigation system maker, TomTom . LA drivers spend an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. During the peak rush hour, there is 80% congestion, according to the index. Los Angeles is often characterized by the presence of low-rise buildings, in contrast to New York City. Outside of a few centers such as Downtown , Warner Center , Century City , Koreatown , Miracle Mile , Hollywood, and Westwood , skyscrapers and high-rise buildings are not common in Los Angeles. The few skyscrapers built outside of those areas often stand out above

8624-690: The year, with an average of only 35 days with measurable precipitation annually. Temperatures in the coastal basin exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on a dozen or so days in the year, from one day a month in April, May, June and November to three days a month in July, August, October and to five days in September. Temperatures in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys are considerably warmer. Temperatures are subject to substantial daily swings; in inland areas

8722-430: The year. In 1911 and 1912, employment ranged from 2,800 to 3,800 workers. The number of laborers working on the aqueduct at its peak was 3,900. In 1913, the City of Los Angeles completed construction of the first Los Angeles Aqueduct. The aqueduct as originally constructed consisted of six storage reservoirs and 215 mi (346 km) of conduit. Beginning 3.5 mi (5.6 km) north of Blackrock ( Inyo County ),

8820-502: Was 2.0 inches (5 cm) on January 15, 1932. While the most recent snowfall occurred in February 2019, the first snowfall since 1962, with snow falling in areas adjacent to Los Angeles as recently as January 2021. Brief, localized instances of hail can occur on rare occasions, but are more common than snowfall. At the official downtown station, the highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) on September 27, 2010, while

8918-404: Was completed in 1926 and created a reservoir capacity of 38,000 acre-feet (47,000,000 m ). On March 12, 1928, the dam catastrophically failed, sending a 100-foot high (30 m) wall of water down the canyon, ultimately reaching the Pacific Ocean near Ventura and Oxnard, and killing at least 431 people. The resulting investigation and trial led to the retirement of William Mulholland as the head of

9016-612: Was designed to flow 290 cu ft/s (8,200 L/s) and begins at the Merritt Diversion Structure at the junction of the North and South Haiwee Reservoirs, south of Owens Lake , and runs roughly parallel to the first aqueduct. Water flows entirely by gravity from an elevation of 3,760 feet (1,150 m) at the Haiwee Reservoir through two power drops to an elevation of 1,200 ft (370 m) at

9114-435: Was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, and by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000, putting pressure on the city's water supply . The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland , ensured

9212-428: Was due largely to the aqueduct, and the city's charter which stated that the City of Los Angeles could not sell or provide surplus water to any area outside the city. Outlying areas relied on wells and creeks for water and, as they dried up, the people in those areas realized that if they were going to be able to continue irrigating their farms and provide themselves domestic water, they would have to annex themselves to

9310-502: Was followed by a series of court ordered restrictions imposed on water exports, which resulted in Los Angeles losing water. In 2005, the Los Angeles Urban Water Management Report reported that 40–50% of the aqueduct's historical supply is now devoted to ecological resources in Mono and Inyo counties. From 1909 to 1928, the city of Los Angeles grew from 61 square miles to 440 square miles. This

9408-554: Was later expanded with the construction of the Mono Extension and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct. The aqueduct uses gravity alone to move the water and also uses the water to generate electricity, which makes it cost-efficient to operate. The construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct effectively eliminated the Owens Valley as a viable farming community and eventually devastated the Owens Lake ecosystem. A group labeled

9506-515: Was not". 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

9604-600: 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 . 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

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