Beverly Hills is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood. Originally a Spanish ranch where lima beans were grown, Beverly Hills was incorporated in 1914 by a group of investors who had failed to find oil, but found water instead and eventually decided to develop it into a town. By 2013, its population had grown to 34,658. Sometimes referred to as “90210”, one of its primary ZIP codes, it was home to many actors and celebrities throughout the 20th century. The city includes the Rodeo Drive shopping district and the Beverly Hills Oil Field.
Geography
Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together entirely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. Specifically, Beverly Hills is bordered on the northwest by the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air and the Santa Monica Mountains, on the east by West Hollywood, the Carthay neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, and on the south by the Beverlywood neighborhood of Los Angeles.The area’s “Platinum Triangle” is formed by the city of Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Bel Air and Holmby Hills.
In spite of the city’s name, most residents live in the “flats” of Beverly Hills, which is a relatively flat land that slants towards the hills, and includes all of Beverly Hills itself. The houses situated in the hillside north of Sunset Boulevard have a much higher value than the average housing price for the rest of the city. Santa Monica Boulevard divides the “flats” into two areas, locally known as “North or South of the tracks,” referring to the train tracks that were once used by the old Pacific Electric streetcar line that traversed Beverly Hills along Santa Monica Blvd. Houses south of Wilshire Boulevard have more urban square and rectangular lots, in general smaller than those to the north. There are also more apartment buildings south of Wilshire Blvd. than anywhere else in Beverly Hills, and the average house value south of Wilshire is the lowest in Beverly Hills. Nearly all businesses and government offices in Beverly Hills are located south of Santa Monica Blvd., two notable exceptions being the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Just outside the city limits to the west lies the Los Angeles Country Club. Other locations commonly associated with Beverly Hills include the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Beverly Center, just outside the city limits to the east.
Beverly Hills Post Office is an area of Los Angeles that the Beverly Hills Post Office serves and carries the “Beverly Hills, CA 90210” mailing address. The other four, less-celebrated ZIP codes for Beverly Hills are: 90209, 90211, 90212 and 90213.
Climate
Beverly Hills has a hot and warm Mediterranean micro-climate, with an average high of 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 degrees Celsius) in August, and an average high of 67 degrees Fahrenheit (19.5 degrees Celsius) in January (source Weather.com). Beverly Hills also receives an average 18 inches (460 mm) of rain per year. Summers are marked by warm to hot temperatures with very little wind, while winters are warm to moderate, to cool with occasional rain alternating with periods of Santa Ana winds. Measurable snowfall has been recorded only in 1882, 1922, 1932, 1949 and 1958.
Economy.
The former Hilton Hotels Corporation headquarters in Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills is home to one Fortune 500 company, Live Nation Entertainment. Since August 22, 2011, the headquarters of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have been located in Beverly Hills.
The Los Angeles-area offices of Aeroflot Alare in Beverly Hills. Hilton Hotels Corporation formerly had its corporate headquarters in Beverly Hills. The original headquarters of GeoCities (at first Beverly Hills Internet) was at 9401 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.
The large and still-productive Beverly Hills Oil Field has four urban drilling islands, which drill diagonally into the earth underneath the city. One drilling islands occasioned a 2003 lawsuit representing former attendees of Beverly Hills High School, approximately 280 of which having suffered from cancers allegedly tied to the drilling operations.
Top employers
According to the city’s 2015 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:
1 City of Beverly Hills
2 Beverly Hills Unified School District
3 Beverly Wilshire Hotel
4 The Beverly Hilton
5 The Beverly Hills Hotel
6 William Morris Agency
7 Saks Fifth Avenue
8 Neiman Marcus Group
9 Creative Artists Agency
10 The Peninsula Beverly Hills
Education
Beverly Hills High School
Beverly Hills is served by Beverly Hills Unified School District, which includes four K-8 schools (Hawthorne, El Rodeo, Beverly Vista, and Horace Mann), Moreno High School, and the Beverly Hills High School.
Beverly Hills also has several private schools. Good Shepherd School, a PreK-8 school in Beverly Hills, is a part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Other Beverly Hills private schools include Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy.
