With only limited space between the desert, the mountains and the ocean, LA has long since filled in the gaps between what were once small and isolated towns. As a result, it's a massive conglomeration of interconnected, amorphous districts, often with little in common.

If LA has a heart, however, it's downtown , in the center of the basin. It offers a taste of almost everything you'll find elsewhere around the city, from upscale avant-garde art along Bunker Hill to the abject dereliction of Skid Row in the Eastside, compressed into an area of small, easily walkable blocks. The area around downtown contains some decaying Victorian suburbs, 1920s Art Deco buildings and the center of LA's enormous and growing Hispanic population.


Heading west from downtown to the coast, the first major district you come to, Hollywood , has streets caked with movie legend - even if the genuine glamour is long gone. Adjoining West LA is home to the city's newest money, shown off in Beverly Hills and along the Sunset Strip. Santa Monica and Venice to the west are the quintessential seafront LA of palm trees, white sands and laid-back living, while the coastline itself stretches another twenty miles northwest to glamorous Malibu , home to the movieland elite.


Suburban Orange County , to the southeast, holds little of interest apart from Disneyland and a handful of laid-back beach towns. On the far side of the northern hills lie the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys , or simply "the Valley," seen by mainstream Los Angeles as nothing more than depressing tract homes and endless strip malls - not unlike the generic LA stereotype viewed by the rest of America.