Everything may be bigger in Texas, but that saying can honestly apply to California, too,
especially in Los Angeles.
If you've ever been to Los Angeles, you'll know that it isn't like any other American
city, where most of them have a major commercial center, surrounded by industrial and suburban
zones, and then some smaller cities.
Los Angeles, however, feels more like suburbs that go on forever (and that's kind of what
it is), but as the victim of a horrible case of city sprawl, how big is the city itself?
In terms of other American cities, LA can comfortably fit Milwaukee, St. Louis, Minneapolis,
Cleveland, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Manhattan with quite a bit of space to
spare.
If that isn't saying much, it's also bigger than some small countries, and I mean countries
bigger than Vatican City (which could fit in Downtown Portland).
Los Angeles can fit several small countries, including Bahrain, San Marino, and Andorra.
This leaves just 9 km^2 short, and amasses to a population of 1.84 million people, granted
that's significantly less than the 4,000,000 in the city alone (not yet factoring the metro
area).
Let's talk about actually getting across the city, which can take a long time, even
on that one day the traffic was manageable.
I planned a trip on Google Maps from the extreme north of the city in San Fernando, all the
way to Long Beach, a nearly hour-long car trip, which isn't too long, but that amassed
to around 80 km (50 miles), which is the altitude of space, to those who use the imperial system.
For a reasonable comparison, a trip from Washington DC to Baltimore takes about the same time,
but is about 15-20 km shorter.
I also planned a similar trip here in Portland, from near Gresham to the Oregon Zoo, which
would have taken a half-hour and covered around a quarter the distance.
So, LA is stupendously big for a city, and sure feels like it, but what about the LA
Metropolitan Area?
Well, at 12,562 km^2… not that big!
It is slightly smaller than Connecticut (14,357 km^2), and about the same size as Vanuatu,
if you squish the islands together (12,189 km^2), or slightly larger than Qatar.
So, hopefully you get the idea that LA is not so much comparable with other cities,
but states and small nations.
Of course, several cities are actually even bigger than LA, like Beijing (16,411 km^2),
which has a lot of the features of what you commonly associate with LA.
Surprisingly, most megacities actually keep themselves compact, which is actually great
for society and the environment.
Thanks for watching, and if you want to find out more about why denser cities can be much
better, I linked a video from MinuteEarth where I'd usually put a similar KhAnubis
Productions video (not a collaboration — I wish it was).
If you enjoyed this video, please be sure to give it a like and subscribe for more in
the future every Sunday.
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