Long Beach
Long Beach is a city in the U.S. state of California located within the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It is the 43rd most populous city in the United States, with a population of 463,218 as of 2020. A charter city Long Beach is the 7th most populous city in California, and the largest city in the state that does not serve as a county seat.
History
In 1784, the Spanish Empire’s King Carlos III granted Rancho Los Nietos to Spanish soldier Manuel Nieto. The Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos were divided from this territory. The boundary between the two ranchos ran through the center of Signal Hill on a southwest to northeast diagonal. A portion of western Long Beach was originally part of the Rancho San Pedro. Its boundaries were in dispute for years, due to flooding changing the Los Angeles River boundary between Rancho San Pedro and Rancho Los Nietos.
In 1843, Jonathan Temple bought Rancho Los Cerritos, having arrived in California in 1827 from New England. He built what is now known as the “Los Cerritos Ranch House”, a still-standing adobe which is a National Historic Landmark. Temple created a thriving cattle ranch and prospered, becoming the wealthiest man in Los Angeles County. Both Temple and his ranch house played important local roles in the Mexican–American War. On an island in the San Pedro Bay, Mormon pioneers made an abortive attempt to establish a colony (as part of Brigham Young’s plan to establish a continuous chain of settlements from the Pacific to Salt Lake).
In 1866, Temple sold Rancho Los Cerritos for $20,000 to the Northern California sheep-raising firm of Flint, Bixby & Company, which consisted of brothers Thomas and Benjamin Flint and their cousin Lewellyn Bixby. Two years previous Flint, Bixby & Co had also purchased along with Northern California associate James Irvine, three ranchos which would later become the city that bears Irvine’s name. To manage Rancho Los Cerritos, the company selected Lewellyn’s brother Jotham Bixby, the “Father of Long Beach”. Three years later, Bixby bought into the property and would later form the Bixby Land Company. In the 1870s, as many as 30,000 sheep were kept at the ranch and sheared twice yearly to provide wool for trade. In 1880, Bixby sold 4,000 acres (16 km2) of the Rancho Los Cerritos to William E. Willmore, who subdivided it in hopes of creating a farm community, Willmore City. He failed and was bought out by a Los Angeles syndicate that called itself the “Long Beach Land and Water Company.” They changed the name of the community to Long Beach at that time.
The City of Long Beach was officially incorporated in 1897.
Climate
Long Beach has a Mediterranean-type climate, with semi-arid climate characteristics. In general, the city features hot summers and mild to warm winters with occasional rainfall. Days in Long Beach are mostly sunny, as in Southern California in general. Temperatures recorded at the weather station at the Long Beach Airport, 4.0 miles (6.4 km) inland from the ocean, range more greatly than those along the immediate coast. During the summer months, low clouds and fog occur frequently, developing overnight and blanketing the area on many mornings. This fog usually clears by the afternoon, and a westerly sea breeze often develops, keeping temperatures mild. Heat and high humidity can sometimes coincide in summer, which may cause discomfort due to the heat index.
Long Beach’s location directly east of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, paired with its south facing coastline, results in the city sometimes experiencing different weather patterns than the Los Angeles metropolitan area coastal communities to the northwest and southeast of Long Beach, which largely have west facing coastlines. The 1200 ft Palos Verdes hills block west to east airflow and a significant amount of the coastal moisture that marks other coastal cities, such as Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica, and Newport Beach.
As in most locations in Southern California, most rainfall in Long Beach occurs during the winter months. Storms can bring heavy rainfall.
Geography
Long Beach is located at 33° 47′ North, 118° 10′ West, about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. The city has a total area of 51.437 square miles, of which 50.293 square miles is land and 1.144 square miles (2.22%) is water. Long Beach completely surrounds the city of Signal Hill.