The Greater Los Angeles Area or the Southland is a term used for both the urbanized region and Combined Statistical Area (a group of interacting metropolitan areas) sprawling over five counties in the southern part of California, namely Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ventura counties. Throughout the 20th century, it was one of the fastest growing regions in the United States, although growth has slowed since 2000. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the Los Angeles metropolitan area had a population of about 12.8 million residents. Meanwhile, the larger metropolitan region's population at the 2010 Census was estimated to be over 17.8 million residents, and a 2011 estimate reported a population of about 18.1 million. Either definition makes it the second largest metropolitan region in the country, behind the New York metropolitan area, as well as one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world.
The agglomeration of the urbanized Greater Los Angeles area surrounds the urban core of the county of Los Angeles. The regional term is defined to refer to the more-or-less continuously urbanized area stretching from Ventura County to the southern border of Orange County, and from the Pacific Ocean to the Coachella Valley in the Inland Empire. The U.S. Census Bureau defines the Greater Los Angeles area to include the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Ventura County, and the entirety of the Inland Empire (including the largely undeveloped potions of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties that are not included in the regional definition) as the "Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA" Combined Statistical Area. The term "Greater Los Angeles" does not include San Diego and Imperial counties, whose urbanized areas are not geographically continuous with the urbanized area surrounding Los Angeles.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Los Angeles metropolitan area has a total area of 4,850 square miles (12,561.442 km2), while the wider combined statistical area covers 33,954 square miles (87,940.456 km2), making it the largest metropolitan region in the United States by land area. However, more than half of this area lies in the sparsely populated eastern areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. In addition to being the nexus of the world's largest entertainment industry, Greater Los Angeles is also a global center of business, international trade, education, media, fashion, tourism, science and technology, sports, and transportation.
Read more about Greater Los Angeles Area: Regions of The Southland, Politics, Economy, Sports
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“It is sometimes called the City of Magnificent Distances, but it might with greater propriety be termed the City of Magnificent Intentions.... Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament—are its leading features.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“There are two modes of transport in Los Angeles: car and ambulance. Visitors who wish to remain inconspicuous are advised to choose the latter”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive traveled like brushfire through the community, and in a sense this is true. The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)
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—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)