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LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Long Beach (California), city in Los Angeles County, southwestern
California, on San Pedro Bay. The city is located in a vast metropolitan
region centered on Los Angeles. Long Beach is a major shipping,
industrial, commercial, and resort center. The Port of Long Beach,
adjacent to Los Angeles Harbor, is one of the nation’s largest container
ports. Extensive oil and natural gas fields lie under the city and
extend offshore under the waters of the bay. The economic activities of
the city are varied, and include the aerospace industry; oil extraction
and related industries; high-technology industries, especially those in
the field of satellite communications technology; and health care
systems. The city is served by Long Beach Airport.
Long Beach is home to California State University-Long Beach (1949), a
community college, and the newly-expanded Long Beach Convention and
Entertainment Center. The retired ocean liner Queen Mary, docked in the
city’s harbor, is a hotel and major tourist attraction. Also of interest
in the city are the Long Beach Museum of Art, housed in a 1912 mansion;
the El Dorado Nature Center; and Rancho Los Alamitos and Rancho Los
Cerritos, 19th-century adobe ranch houses. The Toyota Grand Prix of Long
Beach is an annual event.
The community was laid out in 1882 as Wilmore City by developer William
Wilmore. The city’s name was changed to Long Beach in 1888, the same
year it incorporated. The name Long Beach was chosen to reflect the
city’s development as a beach community. Long Beach grew with the
opening of the port in 1911 and the discovery nearby of oil in 1921. A
1933 earthquake caused much damage, but the city rebuilt and expanded
once again with the establishment of aircraft industries in the early
1940s. In the mid-1970s Long Beach began a redevelopment program
projected to be completed by the year 2000. Long Beach Naval Station
closed in the early 1990s; a federal commission voted in 1995 to close
the naval shipyard as part of a national base-consolidation program.
Long Beach has initiated a reuse plan for these sites that is intended
to result in job creation and economic revitalization. In the mid-1990s
renovation of the waterfront, known as the Queensway Bay Project, began;
planned structures include the Aquarium on the Pacific.
Long Beach covers a land area of 131 sq km (50 sq mi), with a mean
elevation of 14 m (47 ft). According to the 2000 census, whites are 45.2
percent of the population, blacks 14.9 percent, Asians 12 percent,
Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders 1.2 percent, and Native
Americans 0.8 percent. The remainder are of mixed heritage or did not
report race. Hispanics, who may be of any race, are 35.8 percent of the
people. Population 361,334 (1980); 429,433 (1990); 461,522 (2000).
CEBU, PHILIPPINES
Cebu (city, Philippines), also Cebu City, chartered city of the central
Philippines, on Cebu Island. The city, founded in 1565, is the capital
of Cebu Province. In addition to Cebu proper, the Cebu metropolitan
area, known as Metro Cebu, includes the municipalities of Talisay and
Consolacion, and the cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu (on nearby Mactan
Island). Metro Cebu is the second largest metropolitan area in the
Philippines after metropolitan Manila. Roads connect Cebu with other
points on the island, and the Mandaue-Mactan Bridge links the city with
Mactan Island and Lapu-Lapu. Cebu has an excellent harbor. Mactan
International Airport is in Metro Cebu, on Mactan Island.
Shipping is a chief industry in Cebu and consists mainly of trade with
other Philippine ports. Among other industries in the city are the
manufacture of processed food, textiles, and chemicals. Cebu is also a
world center for production of rattan furniture. The Mactan Export
Processing Zone, an industrial tax-free zone that includes approximately
35 foreign- and Philippine-owned ventures, is located on Mactan Island
adjacent to the airport. Tourists are drawn to nearby beaches and coral
reefs. The city has a cathedral dating from 1565 and several
universities, including the University of San Carlos (1595) and a branch
campus of the University of the Philippines.
Cebu is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in the Philippines. The
Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan became the first European to
visit the area when he arrived in 1521. Spanish conquerors founded the
city in 1565 and made it their capital until 1571. During the 1980s,
Metro Cebu grew an average of 3 percent annually, surpassing the
national growth rate of 2.3 percent. The Philippine recession of the
mid-1980s caused many people in outlying areas to move to the
metropolitan area in search of employment. Population (2000) 662,000.
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