What are the second and third largest cities in the United States?

Chicago and Los Angeles.

Chicago is the second largest city in the United States after New York. It is located on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan and at the mouth of the Chicago River. It is the birthplace of the May Day International Labor Day.

Chicago's cultural undertakings are very developed. The University of Chicago in the south of the city is at the world's leading level in medicine and education; there is Picasso's giant steel sculpture in the downtown square; the Chicago Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History and the Industrial Museum are internationally renowned. Moreover, Chicago is the birthplace of blues music, and the jazz performance here is also very beautiful.

Chicago was originally an inland city. After the canal was built in the 1950s, it became a port city with direct access to the outside world. Anhui Lake is a vast expanse of water with vast mist and colorful scenery. It is a good place for boating and swimming. There is the world's largest Buckingham Light Fountain in Grant Park beside the lake. Every night, hundreds of water columns and lights complement each other, creating magnificent colors. It’s a spectacular sight. The Chicago River flows through the urban area, adding a fresh air to the city.

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Los Angeles is the third largest city in the United States. Located in southwestern California, on the east side of the Pacific Ocean along the coast of San Pedro Bay and Santa Monica Bay. The urban area is 1,204.4 square kilometers and the population is 2.967 million (1980). Blacks and Mexicans account for 17% and 15% of the total population respectively, and about 1/3 of the residents speak Spanish. The large urban area includes Los Angeles County and parts of Orange and Ventura counties, as well as more than 80 large and small towns such as Beverly Hills, Pasadena, and Long Beach, with a total area of ??10,567 square kilometers and a population of 747·8 million (1980), second only to the New York metropolitan area.

The city is located in an open basin surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea on one side. Except for some hills, the ground is flat with an average altitude of 84 meters; to the northeast and southeast are the San Gabriel Mountains and Santa Ana Mountains, densely forested. The climate is mild and pleasant, with the average temperature in January being 13.7°C and July 23.4°C. The weather is mostly sunny, and the annual precipitation is only 357 mm, mainly winter rain. There is insufficient water in the rivers flowing through the city, and the city's water supply relies on water pipes drawn from the Owen River to the north and the Colorado River reservoir to the east.

It was originally an Indian pastoral village. Spanish colonists established a town here in 1781. It has been under the jurisdiction of Mexico since 1822. It belonged to the United States after the Mexican-American War in 1846. It was established as a city in 1850. The city gradually grew as immigrants moved westward in the United States. After the "Gold Rush" in California in the mid-19th century, some immigrants came here to engage in farming, and the trade of agricultural and animal husbandry products became an important early economic activity in the city. In the 1870s and 1880s, the transcontinental Southern Pacific Railway and the Santa Fe Railway connecting the Midwest and the discovery and development of oil resources in nearby areas enabled the city to develop rapidly. In 1900, the population exceeded 100,000. At the beginning of the 20th century, water diversion through long-distance pipelines solved the city's serious water supply problem, and agriculture flourished in the suburbs; the construction of the artificial port, the navigation of the Panama Canal and the rise of the Hollywood film industry accelerated urban development. In 1940 the population reached 1.5 million. Since the Second World War, the demand for arms has stimulated the rise of modern industry, and commerce, finance and tourism have prospered. Immigrants have surged and urban areas have continued to expand to all directions, becoming an emerging megacity in the United States.

The largest industrial center in the western United States, its manufacturing output accounts for about 1/2 of California's, ranking third in the country. The heavy and chemical industry is developed. The aircraft manufacturing industry occupies a prominent position. Among the more than 16,000 factories and enterprises in the urban area, about 2,000 are engaged in manufacturing aircraft and their parts. Lockheed and Douglas, among the three major aircraft manufacturing companies in the United States, are located in the urban area. Burbank in the north and Santa Monica on the west coast have products for both civilian and military use. This is followed by industrial sectors such as oil extraction, oil processing, and electronic instruments, steel, automobiles, shipbuilding, chemicals, and rubber. The light industry is mainly clothing, food, printing, etc., and the production of canned food, women's clothing and sportswear is world-famous. The industrial distribution is relatively scattered.

Large aircraft manufacturing plants are built in the northwest and south of the city; Long Beach on the coast of San Pedro Bay is a comprehensive heavy chemical industrial zone focusing on oil refining and shipbuilding; east of the city is the light textile industrial zone, and the southern suburbs are electronic instruments Industrial zone; the east is the steel industrial zone and the city's power industrial base, with many large power plants. Hollywood, northwest of the city, is home to more than 600 film and television studios. Suburban agriculture is developed. It is rich in vegetables, citrus fruits, dairy products, eggs, meat and other livestock products. 29% of employees in the urban area are concentrated in the commerce, finance, and insurance industries, second only to New York and Chicago in wholesale and retail sales, and banks, savings and credit institutions, insurance companies, etc. are located throughout the city.

The largest port on the Pacific Coast of the United States. The main port area is in San Pedro Bay, consisting of the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach adjacent to the east and west. The total length of the coastline of the two ports is 74 kilometers, the water depth is 12 to 18 meters, and the tidal range is less than 1.2 meters. It can accommodate seagoing ships with a weight of less than 180,000 tons. It has various specialized docks, warehouses and modern loading and unloading, refrigeration and other facilities. The annual cargo throughput was 31.52 million tons and 43.53 million tons respectively (1981). It mainly exported cotton, petroleum products, aircraft, rubber and other industrial products, and imported steel, wood, coffee and other raw materials. It is the starting point of three major transcontinental railway lines in the United States, and there are north-south railways connecting major cities on the Pacific coast. The expansion of Los Angeles urban area is accompanied by the development of highway transportation. It is famous for its dense highways and many cars, but it lacks a public transportation system. Various roads and parking lots in the large urban area occupy 1/3 of the total area. The total length of expressways is 1,050 kilometers, crisscrossing the urban streets through elevated lanes, tunnels and interchange systems; there are more than 4.8 million vehicles of various types (1982) , including 3.72 million cars, ranking first among major cities in terms of per capita ownership. Exhaust gas and industrial smoke emitted by automobiles often accumulate in the basin under the influence of downdrafts in summer and autumn, leading to the nickname "Smog City". The situation has improved due to the adoption of environmental protection measures in recent years. There are 10 large and small airports in the urban area. Among them, the Los Angeles International Airport located in the west of the city has 57 air routes. In 1981, it handled 503,000 aircraft movements, transported 32.7 million passengers and 904,000 tons of cargo, making it the busiest airport in the United States. One of the airports.

Los Angeles is a group of cities and towns, large and scattered. Before the 1950s, the city mainly developed in a flat direction, with low and flat buildings extending in all directions. It was stipulated that the building height should not exceed 46 meters and 15 floors to prevent earthquakes. With the reduction of open space, high land prices and improvements in construction technology, the ban was lifted since 1957 and high-rise buildings gradually emerged. There are now 8 high-rise buildings with more than 40 floors in the city. The First Interstate Bank Building is 261.5 meters high and has 62 floors, making it the tallest building in the city. The urban area is loosely composed of 8 relatively independent parts. The central area of ??the city is located at the east end of the city, with the city hall and its nearby city, county, state, and federal administrative office buildings as its main body. There are the Japanese-inhabited area "Little Tokyo" and the Chinese-inhabited area "Chinatown"; in the northeast It is the birthplace of the city, and it still retains its ancient squares, streets, and shops, with a strong Mexican color. The Central District to the west of the city center is where Hollywood, the film and television center, is located. Hollywood Street and Senset Street and Wilshire Street, which run across the city, pass through this district. There are many high-rise buildings, shops, restaurants, nightclubs and cafes gathering together. One of the busiest commercial streets in the city. Most of the West End is occupied by the Santa Monica Mountains. Since the early 1960s, the "Century City" built at a cost of US$1 billion has begun to take shape, covering an area of ??73 hectares. It is a multi-functional comprehensive building complex known as "A city within a city". The northern San Fernando Valley occupies 1/2 of the urban area and concentrates 1/3 of the population. It is the main residential area. The South Central and East Sides were black. and Mexican settlements with poor housing conditions. The South Bay area is famous for its tourist resort beaches, and the southern Los Angeles port area is a port for foreign trade.

The cultural, educational and tourism center of the western United States, there are famous institutions of higher learning such as the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Southern California and the California Institute of Technology. The Los Angeles Public Library has the third largest collection of books in the country. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art displays art treasures from ancient Egyptian times, as well as the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Art Gallery, and the Music Center.

There is a large stadium with a capacity of 92,000 spectators, where the 23rd Olympic Games was held in 1984. There are 210 parks and numerous recreational and leisure places in the city. Covering an area of ??1,600 hectares. Griffith Park, the largest urban park in the United States, the world-famous Disney Amusement Center, sunny beaches and coastal animal nature reserves, attract tens of millions of domestic and foreign tourists every year.

("Encyclopedia of China·World Geography")