Los Angeles-based band Jane's Addiction titled their debut album "Nothing's Shocking", and indeed, short of an earthquake, little seems to jolt the city's four million residents, but a few of the following bits of trivia may surprise you about this 160-year old, 467-square mile, Southern California municipality.
15 Fantastic Facts:
1. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula," which translated from Spanish, means "The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of the river of Porziuncola."
2. Los Angeles is home to people from more than 140 countries speaking 224 different identified languages.
3. Based on population alone, if the Los Angeles urban area were a state it would be the fifth largest in America behind only California, New York, Texas, and Florida. If you only counted the population within LA's actual administrative limits it would still rank 27th.
4. Los Angeles didn't permit any part of buildings other than decorative towers to be more than 150 feet high before the late 1950s. So from its completion in 1928 until 1964, the City Hall, at 32 floors and 454 in height, was the tallest building in LA, and is still the tallest base-isolated structure in the world. It is designed to stay standing after an 8.2 magnitude earthquake. Another factoid: its tower's concrete was made with sand from each of California's 58 counties and water from its 21 missions.
5. Los Angeles and San Francisco become 2.5 inches closer every year, because they are on opposite sides of the infamous San Andreas Fault.
6. A person would actually need to travel slightly west to go from LA to Reno, Nevada.
7. In Los Angeles, there are more automobiles than people, and vehicles take up about 24% of the city's total ground area.
8. Los Angeles has the largest system of roadways in the country: more than 7300 miles in total.
9. Although Chicago O'Hare and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airports each attract more flights in total, more originate at LAX than any other in the U.S. because LA is the largest transportation center on the west coast.
10. Los Angeles, cultural center that it is, has at least 90 stage theaters and over 300 museums, which is more than any other American city.
11. Los Angeles' "digital coast" fills more multimedia positions than the more technologically famous Silicon Valley and New York City combined.
12. Los Angeles has about 200,000 small businesses, or more than twice that of any other part of the country. No wonder it has been called the "entrepreneurial capital of the world".
13. Los Angeles has the largest number of women-owned businesses in the nation.
14. Marina del Rey, technically in LA County, is America's largest yacht harbor.
15. Los Angeles is the only non-European city to have hosted the Summer Olympics twice.
