Los Angeles ( ( listen); Spanish for "The Angels"; Spanish: [los ˈaŋxeles]; officially: the City of Los Angeles; colloquial: by its initials L.A.) is the second -most populous city in the United States, after New York City. With a population estimated at 3.98 million, Los Angeles is the largest and most populous city in the state of California and the cultural, financial, and commercialcenter of Southern California.
Located in a large coastal basin surrounded on three sides by mountains as high as 10,000 feet (3,000 m), Los Angeles covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km2). The city is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the country. Los Angeles is the center of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, with 13.1 million residents, and is part of the larger Los Angeles-Long Beach combined statistical area, the second most populous in the nation with a 2015 estimated population of 18.7 million.
Historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was officially founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood.
