Los Angeles

Los Angeles city is situated in southern California. It is a semitropical metropolis of palm trees and swimming pools, television studios and aerospace factories. The city sprawls across the territory of 1,202 square kilometres. Its hallmark is an architecturally dramatic network of freeways. The automobile dominates life in this uniquely mobile community.

Los Angeles County contains more than 80 other incorporated cities, including Beverly Hills, Pasadena, and Long Beach.

The metropolitan area has paid for its spectacular growth by acquiring such present-day urban attributes as smog-filled skies, polluted harbours, clogged freeways, crowded classrooms, explosive ghettos, and annual budgets on the brink of bankruptcy.

Nevertheless Los Angeles attracts millions of people from all over the world. Probably the most famous street in the city is Sunset Boulevard. Here you can see every side of the city's character – cheap nightclubs side by side with smart stores and expensive restaurants. At the western end of the Boulevard is the Beverly Hills Hotel, where visiting film stars, directors and writers go to sign their contracts.

In the exclusive suburbs of Beverly Hills and Belair one can see magnificent houses built in every possible style and surrounded by green lawns, swimming pools and high security fences. The streets here are spotlessly clean and there are Rolls Royces everywhere you look.

Tourists can take a guided tour round Universal Studios in Hollywood or spend a lazy afternoon at Malibu Lagoon where many of Hollywood's younger film stars and directors come to relax. Malibu is also an excellent beach for surfing, and champion surfers come here from all over the world.

Disneyland is a place for children of all ages. At Disneyland you can go on a boat journey through a tropical jungle; you can take a train through the American Wild West; travel in a spaceship or plunge into a pool at Splash Mountain.

About 50 miles from Los Angeles city is Santa Barbara, a beautiful resort on the Pacific coast.

7. Check yourself. What do you know about:

the geographical position of the USA;

Stars and Stripes;

the political system of the USA;

the relief of the USA;

the country’s main rivers and lakes;

the climate of the USA;

North East region;

Great Plains;

Central Basin;

Mountains and deserts region;

South East region;

Coast Valleys;

Alaska;

Hawaii;

history of Washington D.C.;

the Capitol;

the White House;

the Washington Monument;

Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials;

the Smithsonian Institution;

the National Arlington Cemetery;

history of New York;

Manhattan.