Los Angeles is better known for its freeways and film studios than for its walks, but its downtown is full of surprises: a Spanish colonial plaza, a funicular from 1901, a Victorian atrium from a science-fiction film and a concert hall wrapped in steel. Here are the facts and stories that make the city special.
10 fun facts about Los Angeles
- A very long name: the city was founded on 4 September 1781 by 44 settlers sent by the Spanish governor of California. Its full name was El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles, the Town of the Queen of the Angels.
- The oldest house in town: the Avila Adobe on Olvera Street, built in 1818, is the oldest surviving residence in Los Angeles.
- A city bigger than most states: Los Angeles is the second-largest city in the United States, and Los Angeles County has more inhabitants than most US states.
- The tower that stood alone: City Hall was completed in 1928. A city height limit kept other buildings to about 150 feet until 1958, so for decades its tower was by far the tallest thing on the skyline.
- A railway one block long: Angels Flight, a funicular that opened in 1901, climbs Bunker Hill on tracks only about 298 feet long. It calls itself the world's shortest railway.
- A film set that is a real office building: the Bradbury Building, finished in 1893, hides a skylit atrium of iron balconies, open cage lifts and marble stairs. It is famous as a location in Blade Runner.
- A food hall since 1917: the Grand Central Market on Broadway has fed downtown for more than a century, and today mixes old stalls with taquerias and coffee bars.
- Three Olympic Games: Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984, and will host them a third time in 2028.
- Ice Age fossils in the middle of the city: at the La Brea Tar Pits, natural asphalt trapped animals for tens of thousands of years. Mammoths, sabre-toothed cats and dire wolves have been dug out of it, and excavation still goes on today.
- Stars on the pavement: the Hollywood Walk of Fame received its first stars in 1960.
The Hollywood sign, from advert to icon
The world's most famous sign began as a property advertisement. In 1923 developers put up giant letters reading HOLLYWOODLAND on Mount Lee to sell plots in a new hillside estate, and the sign was meant to stay up for only a short time. It stayed. In 1949 the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce repaired it and removed the last four letters, so that it named the whole district rather than one housing estate. By the 1970s the wooden letters were falling apart, and in 1978 donors, including the rock singer Alice Cooper and the publisher Hugh Hefner, each paid for a new steel letter. The sign is fenced off and you cannot reach it, but it is easy to see from the Griffith Observatory and from many streets in Hollywood.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall, explained
In 1987 Lillian Disney, Walt Disney's widow, gave the first large gift for a new concert hall in her husband's memory. The architect Frank Gehry designed it as a cluster of curved stainless steel sails, using CATIA, software developed for the aircraft industry, to make the shapes buildable. After long delays it opened on 23 October 2003 as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with 2,265 seats arranged around the orchestra. The shine caused a problem: polished panels reflected sunlight into nearby flats and onto the street, so in 2005 they were lightly sanded to dull them. Across Grand Avenue, Grand Park, opened in 2012, runs downhill from the Music Center to City Hall.
What to eat in Los Angeles
- French dip: a roast beef sandwich dipped in meat juices. Two downtown restaurants that both opened in 1908, Philippe the Original and Cole's, each claim to have invented it.
- Tacos: Los Angeles has some of the best tacos outside Mexico. Look for tacos al pastor, carved from a vertical spit, at taco trucks and stands.
- In-N-Out Burger: the California burger chain was founded in 1948 in Baldwin Park, in Los Angeles County.
- Korean barbecue: Koreatown, just west of downtown, has one of the largest Korean communities outside Korea, and its grill restaurants stay busy late into the night.
Good to know before you go
- Distances are large and traffic is heavy, so plan each day around one area. The Metro rail network links downtown with Hollywood, Union Station and Santa Monica.
- At the Walt Disney Concert Hall, outdoor stairs lead up to a garden terrace where you can walk right beside the steel curves, even without a concert ticket.
Explore Los Angeles with World City Trail
Our Los Angeles scavenger hunt turns these sights into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops and takes around three hours, with about 53 minutes of walking, and its stops include Grand Park and the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
At each stop you solve a puzzle and hear a short story, at your own pace. You can start whenever you like and play in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese.
Play the Los Angeles scavenger hunt →
Facts checked in October 2026.