Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles (also called L.A.), is a city in Southern California, in the United States. There are 3,847,400 people living in the city, and over 18 million people in the L.A. region. The city has an area of . Los Angeles has the second biggest population of any city in the United States, the first being New York, overtaking Chicago in this category in the 1970s. It is also the biggest city of California. Due to being built on a fault line, which runs through the downtown, it is quite lacking in skyscrapers and tall structures and is one of the most spread out cities in the world. Greater Los Angeles is home to many of the biggest rock bands in the history of the United States. Los Angeles is surrounded by East Los Angeles, Huntington Park, Maywood, Walnut Park, Commerce, Bell, Glendale, South Pasadena, Monterey Park, South Gate, Cudahy, West Hollywood, Alhambra, Bell Gardena and Westmont.