The entire world population could fit inside Los Angeles.
The world population grows larger every year, but we aren’t exactly running out of physical space. In fact, all 7.8 billion of us could easily fit inside Los Angeles. Research has shown that you can fit about 10 people into a square meter, crowded-elevator style; Los Angeles is about 1.2 billion square meters, which means that if we all squeezed together the city could theoretically fit around 12 billion people. However, we couldn’t do much more than pose for a quick photo before going our separate ways, as there isn’t enough space in L.A. for everyone to actually live in such close quarters.
Still, the sprawling City of Angels — which currently has a population just under 4 million — is big enough to theoretically hold the world’s people even as their number increases in the coming decades. The United Nations estimates that there will be 9.8 billion humans in 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100, while the Wittgenstein Centre projects that world population will peak at 9.4 billion in 2070 before declining to just under nine billion by 2100. Meanwhile, India is expected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2027.
When a group of settlers arrived in present-day Los Angeles on September 4, 1781, they didn't name it Los Angeles. They instead called the new farming community El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula, which means “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciúncula.” With 44 people from 14 different families, the group's heritage included Native American, European, and African ancestry — which is to say that the City of Angels was diverse from the very beginning. El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument, which marks a spot near where they settled and is recognized as the city’s birthplace, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
