Home > Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County is a county with 9,802,800 residents ( as of 2001), the most populous county in California and in the entire United States. The county seat is the city of Los Angeles. The county is home to 88 incorporated cities and many unincorporated city-like areas. The coastal portion of the county is heavily urbanized, though there is a large expanse of lesser populated desert inland in the Santa Clarita Valley, and especially in the Antelope Valley which encompasses the northeastern parts of the county and adjacent eastern Kern County, lying just north of Los Angeles County. In between the large desert portions of the county - which make up around 40 per cent of its land area - and the heavily urbanized central and southern portions sits the San Gabriel Mountains containing Angeles National ForestThe Angeles National Forest was established by executive order in December, 1892. It covers over 260,000 ha (650,000 acres) and is located in the San Gabriel Mountains, just north of the metropolitan area of Los Angeles, California. The Angeles National F. All of southern Los Angeles County, up to about the center of the county, is heavily urbanized.
This county holds most of the principal cities encompassing the Greater Los Angeles AreaThe Greater Los Angeles Area is the urban area around Los Angeles, California. This informal term is synonymous with the term The Southland a name mostly used by local news outlets. The scope of the term has been variously used to include one to five Sout, and is the most important of the five counties that make up the area. As of 2004, the county's population is larger than the populations of 43 states.
1 Law and government
The county is governed by the five-member Los Angeles County Board of SupervisorsThe Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is the five member governing board of Los Angeles County. Members of the board of supervisors are elected by district, the current members as of Sept 2004 are: District 1 Gloria Molina Democrat District 2 Yvonne, who are elected by the county's voters. The small size of the board means each supervisor represents almost 2 million people.
The Board meets every week in the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles . Its weekly meetings are televised on local cable networks and transcripts are published online. Because of the huge implications of almost any given Board decision, the meetings are regularly attended by speakers and protesters on behalf of many causes. The county is sued all the time by various public interest law firms and organizations on behalf of people who disagree with the Board's decisions.
The county government is operated by a Chief Administrative Officer (currently David Janssen) and is organized into many departments, each of which is enormous in comparison to equivalent county-level (and even state-level) departments anywhere else in the United States. Some of the larger or better-known departments include:
- Los Angeles County Coroner - cleans up people who die outside hospitals under unusual circumstances
- Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors - the BaywatchBaywatch was a popular American television show about lifeguards who patrol the crowded beaches of Los Angeles County. The show ran from 1989 to 2001. Baywatch premiered on NBC in 1989, but was cancelled after only one season. Feeling the series had poten people
- Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services - administers foster care and child support
- Los Angeles County Department of Health Services - operates several county hospitals and a network of primary care clinics
- Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation - administers public parks and the largest public golf course system in the U.S.
- Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services - administers many federal and state welfare programs
- Los Angeles County District Attorney - prosecutes criminal suspects
- Los Angeles County Museum of ArtThe Los Angeles County Museum of Art also known as LACMA is the official art museum of the County of Los Angeles, California. Located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles, LACMA houses over 100,000 works o - public art museum
- Los Angeles County Public Defender - defends indigent criminal suspects
- Los Angeles County Public Library - operates a large network of branch libraries
- Los Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentThe Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) serves Los Angeles County, California. It also serves the incorporated cities and towns within the county who have contracted with the agency for law-enforcement services (known as "contract cities" in lo - provides law enforcement services to unincorporated areas and cities that do not have their own police departments, and operates the huge county jails
