Los Angeles City has the worst map in America

[@GeographyNow]

I made a youtube short that went a little viral on this so I figured why not expound more on the topic since you guys liked it, Welcome to Los Angeles, the city with the dumbest map in the USA! Also UPDATE* Dammit misspelled "Torrance"

[@siyacer]

what isn't dumb there

[@pyeitme508]

Welp duh 🙄

[@K1ddkanuck]

I would love a series like this on cities across the world. From Tokyo to Toronto.

[@SSamYou]

Why do you still respond to comments more regularly if your channel is so big

[@jumbowana]

For a US example of the city not being everything, look to St. Louis. The city is actually pretty small and the county eclipses it in people, money, land area, etc. That's why the Stl crime stats look so bad.

[@miguellopes7627]

The whole "have your own water supply or be annexed" situation sounds like a medieval siege

[@JayYoung-ro3vu]

Not really. Many central cities have used water & sewer access to grow. Some cities extended lines into undeveloped areas without requiring annexation into the city. Others require a short timeline to come into the city. Central cities 'fight' to keep from getting landlocked by their suburbs. Hence, the panhandle. Also depends upon state annexation laws. In Ohio, the process is initiated by the property owner. Cities like going after tax rich producing areas while going around the tax poor ones Look at a map of Columbus, Ohio. It has landlocked suburbs within its borders. It has township remnants. It has panhandles, and it's the fastest growing area in the state. Ohio law prevents discontinuous chunks of cities UNLESS the remnants of a township FINALLY form a city or merge with its township seat city. Curious thing about the South and West as they permit such isolated city chunks until the city connects in between them. Smaller municipalities in South Caroline seem to start out circular and annex from there. Have seen several examples. Must be state laws?

[@MarcHarder]

That's not Tokyo City, that's Tokyo Prefecture (actually Metropolis, but whatever) which consists of multiple cities, towns and villages. While there is no single city called 'Tokyo', the special wards area is often considered to be the 'core' of the Tokyo Metro, with each 'ward' having similar powers to (and stylizing themselves in English as) a city, i.e. 世田谷区 in Japanese but City of Setagaya in English.

[@Mario123007]

Also it's actually common knowledge among Japanese that Tokyo Disneyland actually isn't in tokyo it's in the Chiba prefecture lol.

[@TheKewlPerson]

Also Kawasaki Motors that makes the motorcycles isn't located in Kawasaki City near Tokyo, they're based in Akashi city, which is right next to Kobe.

[@zeitgeistx5239]

Very much like NYC.

[@mutated__donkey5840]

@@zeitgeistx5239no. NYC is compromised of 5 counties and is wholly in New York State.

[@EmelyPhan]

​​@@Mario123007Toronto Pearson Airport is similar to Tokyo Disney. The airport is in the neighboring city despite having the name of city/place that it isn't in.

[@ArakiIsthebest-zg1cx]

So, I kinda dig this new series of more chill videos, where they talk about all sorts of random stuff, like weird admin rules in different countries or cities. They sometimes throw in some news-related videos too, but honestly, I like it. I know it’s not really what Paul had in mind at first-he was more about getting out there, y'know, hitting the ground. But for now, these videos are still pretty cool, and I’m always down to watch whatever’s next, whether it’s more about geography or travel vibes. I get it, though. Keep doing your thing.

[@ImperatorLemon]

Funnily enough, this video was posted at 2AM in LA

[@lucaslonchampt613]

If only it was posted 4 hours and 16 minutes later in LA

[@SiPakRubah]

Lol go to sleep lol

[@edgarviens]

And at 5am in Montreal Canada

[@mayortyranno4645]

and at 11 at night in new zealand

[@azertytores]

​@@mayortyranno4645 11 Am in France 😂

[@RangerJackWalker]

The rich areas don't want their taxes going to 'poor' areas?

[@wheeliebeast7679]

Mostly yes.

[@carstarsarstenstesenn]

Somewhat, but a lot of the dumb borders came from the city expanding by annexing towns but then not being able to annex certain towns that border towns they did annex

[@duqial]

It's probably also like Monaco being independent rather than a part of a bigger country for more comfortable legislation rules?

[@lewatoaofair2522]

Land of the NIMBYs.

[@sirBrouwer]

@@duqial Monaco is independence do to the casino. Gambling was in most places not legal. there it is. plus for France there is no incentive to conquer Monaco there is no recourse to be found there to be of use. But it does get money from Monaco for it's defence budget.

[@tomatolettuce3040]

Correction: Tokyo Disneyland is located in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, not Tokyo. It's called Tokyo Disneyland due to PR reasons.

[@maxfi878]

And Disneyland Paris is not in Paris either.

[@KS-lp3ui]

And Disney World is not in Orlando.

[@nbewarwe]

And Disneyland Hong Kong is not on Hong Kong Island.

[@gilhernandez7111]

And Disneyland is not in LA

[@EmelyPhan]

Not Disney Related: Toronto Pearson Airport is not in Toronto.

[@joshuasalem5022]

This video does a great job explaining one of many reasons why it’s really really hard to build housing in LA, because it’s not just LA City you have to work with.

[@viniciuscastro4433]

Don't forget the NIMBY's making it all worse

[@pbcash7788]

You are correct. I work in RE and LA county is the WORST to deal with in terms of permitting. It’s why we build way more in Orange County and the IE. LA RE is basically a monopoly for major apartment building companies. They make it impossible on anyone else.

[@gregfaller1814]

I really dig these new, more obscure geographic topics that you're tackling now that your main objective is over! They're super interesting and I'm all for it! Sincerely, a subscriber since the Belgium video

[@shadowmewfred09]

Additional fun fact about london: it has about 20%+ forested area which is one of the highest for a capital city in fact London can technically be classed as a forest. Also Westminster here is like d.c. in the US a separate area normally for government buildings

[@CloroxBleachCompany]

The real reason comes down to history. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo legally required the U.S. to recognize Mexican, Spanish, and Californio rights to existing land holdings-mostly ranchos-which were sold off or acquired through eminent domain over the following century. This led to the slow and unsystematic development of cities founded from these land grants.

[@TheDanEdwards]

The video left out that a "City" in the US in an incorporation - it's a corporation, a fictitious person. And like corporations do, a city can buy and sell things, including land. As you point out, historically there were large land holdings and some of them were bought by different corporations (er, cities.)

[@skojaze7679]

I really like this new segment of yours, Geogra-talk, quite niche but interesting stuff. Keep up the great work Barbs!

[@michaelyegiazaryan6714]

7:27 like for the story of glendale and burbank

[@heisen-bones]

he explained Burbank

[@joermnyc]

If you look at New York City it seems pretty straightforward, until you learn that the neighborhood of Marble Hill is not technically part of The Bronx, but Manhattan across Spuytun Duyvil Creek (Dutch or maybe Old Dutch for Spite the Devil). The creek used to be north of Marble Hill and it was a nightmare for navigation. The Army Corps of Engineers not only deepened it, but decided to slice Marble Hill off of Manhattan to straighten the creek. The old creek bed was then filled in to attach Marble Hill to The Bronx, but it was never legally incorporated with the Bronx. The only difference between Manhattan and Marble Hill is the telephone Area Code, the people wanted 212, but the phone company was like, “That’s too complicated, you’re getting 718 like everything else around you.”

[@sirBrouwer]

Me being Dutch and having some understanding of old Dutch (still a challange). the Spuytun Duyvil Creek a literal translation would be the spouting devil creek. As it might have been a wild and dangerous or unpredictable creek. a more correct translation would be the raging devil creek. as Spouting could also imply you speaking like a mad man.

[@matthewmahler9212]

Or that NYC is 5 counties that mostly gave up their self governance to the city

[@bababababababa6124]

Americans, I’m sorry, but your weird city maps is the exact reason why people outside your country just lump different cities into one. That whole urban area is LA to me.

[@ScreenSage_YT]

We americans also do that. The weird quirks in our city maps only matter in situations for the purposes of taxes, utilities, or legal/politcal matters. Edit: Clarified when quirks in city boundaries matter.

[@bababababababa6124]

@@ScreenSage_YTfair enough, but I have spoken to Americans that are from places like Fort Worth, Katy, or Fort Lauderdale, and they’re adamant they’re from completely separate cities 😂 legally they are, but being real here, that’s basically Dallas, Houston and Miami respectively

[@Culturalgazelle]

I live in Pasadena currently and if I’m asked abroad where I live, I will just say I’m from LA because I don’t want to have to explain myself. If I’m in California, I will say I live in Pasadena because it gives people who know, a better idea. You would be the person I’m not trying to explain it to😂

[@Culturalgazelle]

I do remember a handful of conversations where someone says they are from LA and then asked what part, and they say somewhere like El Monte or La Puente and they are teased that that is not actually LA

[@willyuchmow7871]

Totally okay, I live in New Jersey so I totally understand this as whenever people from outside the USA ask where I’m from I just say NYC or Philly

[@chrisclancy6756]

I am excited to visit LA for the first time next year! Also, Barbs: PLEASE Give us a regions of Italy video!!!

[@Culturalgazelle]

@@chrisclancy6756 eat the Mexican food in East LA and/or Boyle Heights

[@rebeccabonnicirebygotitall]

Would love this video 😊

[@Mortablunt]

Mind the used needles and hobo dumps.

[@ks_ig2728]

There's a city in the Philippines called Caloocan where it's separated into two pieces. North and South. Story was that Quezon City annexed a large part of the city called Novaliches when it was created. What makes it interesting is how different North and South Caloocan is. South is seen as dangerous, poor and crowded while North is wealthy, leafy, and suburban.

[@CrystalClearWith8BE]

@@ks_ig2728, in Metro Manila, two cities have two separate lands. Manila's city limits has an exclave surrounded by Makati since they have the land of Manila South Cemetery.

[@grantorino2325]

Kamusta ka! I never understood why the island where Manila is located is called _Luzon_ , but Manila's largest suburb is called _Quezon_ City. 🤔

[@BenutzerWalter]

1:12 Brussels is similar. The Brussels Capital Region is its own region within Belgium (1 of 3), and generally, when one mentions Brussels, they're referring to the region. But there is also the City of Brussels, which is the largest of 19 municipalities within the Brussels region. The City of Brussels actually used to be smaller-just the Pentagon city center-but it has merged with other municpalities over time and become the largest, but with weirdly shaped, non-contiguous borders.

[@noranekosparks4177]

I grew up in Fresno. Had no idea it was such a mapping mess. That explains why half the time we drove through Clovis and my 10 year old brain thought we were far away from home. Not exactly sure, but Fresno also has a canal system to distribute water so water supply may also be a factor in its strangeness.

[@davidpetersen6694]

Super interesting! Glad you mentioned my city, Houston. Fun fact; unlike Houston, Austin & San Antonio, Poor little Dallas😢 can no longer grow because it is surrounded by smaller suburbs with their own city limits. Houston ,with its octopus fingers that follow major highways, will find new territories to annex in the next decades to come. We annexed Kingwood and nearby Lake Houston to control surface runoff pollution in the area since Lake Houston is a major source of drinking water for over 2 million people. We Love your little geo chats, Barbs! ❤️😎⭐️🥇🏆👍🎤📺

[@franciskafayeszter4138]

Wow. I always thought Burbank, Santa Monica, Pasadena and all the others mentioned in movies and TV shows are like miles away from each other. I knew they were all in California, but California is pretty huge (around 4 times bigger then my home country), so I assumed these are all miles apart. Seeing that these are all in one cluster gives me a whole new perspective...

[@shard4756]

They are miles apart. Santa Monica is 25 miles away from Pasadena, and 24 miles away from Burbank.

[@amanshilanov6237]

​@shard4756 all of that is driveable in 30 mins(excl traffic). That's average for all big cities. I think the person above meant tens or hundreds of miles away

[@billcook4768]

That map of LA Barbs shows in this video is really big.

[@dante340]

What's really funny is how most San Fernando Valley residents have absolutely no idea they live in the City of Los Angeles lol Due to many neighborhoods having their own mailing addresses like Encino, Van Nuys, Sun Valley, Woodland Hills, Granada Hills, etc., they are often mistakenly assumed to be their own independent cities, but they're actually not.

[@user-gp9es3rd3e]

The way the postcode system works would also be an interesting video (to me lol)

[@miatx6818]

About Tokyo. That string that you saw was not the city but the prefecture of Tokyo. Same as a province. There are like Manila and Los Angeles multiple cities in the area. Like Long beach, Anaheim, Hollywood, Beverly hills for Los Angeles and Queson, Pasig, Caloocan, Antipolo, Paranaque for Manila. And its Shibuya crossing not Shinjuku crossing.

[@julgercards]

I find it concerning that I don't think the map of LA doesn't look that bad.

[@grahamturner2640]

3:16 Phoenix’s borders aren’t even that weird by its own region’s standards. A lot of the other cities went so insane with annexing land in the 70s that our state legislature had to curtail municipal annexation powers. Some of the craziness from other cities includes: - Buckeye bordering Surprise, even though the old town sites for those cities are at least 20 miles away from each other, and Goodyear and Glendale are in the way. Buckeye’s borders in general are very weird. - Mesa preventing Gilbert from annexing Williams Field, even though Williams Field is around 20 miles away from downtown Mesa. Mesa is in the top 50 of US cities by population. - Sun City being surrounded on three sides by Peoria, but being unincorporated. - Peoria having a 1 mile wide strip of land that connects the southern half of the city to the northern half, which extends into a different county. - Glendale’s strip annexation around Luke Air Force Base. Our Glendale is probably a bit larger than yours. - Scottsdale being 2 miles wide from the Tempe border to Doubletree Ranch Road due to tribal politics. At least a lot of the valley cities, especially in the west valley, agreed to base their location address systems as an extension of Phoenix. The east valley cities, except Scottsdale and Queen Creek, still use their own address systems. I’m not sure why Queen Creek adopted Phoenix’s system, when the cities between them and Phoenix have their own. The valley is a common nickname for the entire Phoenix region. Also, the city of Phoenix is so huge that some people, especially when referring to the outskirts, use the names of the “urban villages” to refer to those areas, even though the urban village system is something the city government created to try to spread out and concentrate development, and the villages have very little power to do anything.

[@frostyguy1989]

Auckland City in New Zealand used to be divided between four cities and several smaller district councils until around 2010. Apparently, the government thought it was a wise idea to copy how LA did things, except that all the councils were successfully assimilated into the "Super City" Borg construct. People were getting tired of the lack of cooperation between the councils impacting infrastructure and responsiveness to local affairs. The idea was a single streamlined local council would be more responsive and quick to act without mountains of bureaucracy getting in the way. What happened instead was the "Super City" council became even less responsive, more incompetent and more undemocratic. Go figure.

[@XandateOfHeaven]

It's funny because London is essentially divided into 32 separate borough governments, but still suffers from lack of responsiveness. In LAs case, one of the big problems is the county is governed by just five people, and there isn't really a separate legislative and executive body. So it's VERY unresponsive, plus people don't vote in their county elections.

[@ramimroueh2769]

Yeah speaking as a Londoner, our city just sprawls out into the rest of southern England and people have differing views on what constitutes as London because of so many different factors

[@XandateOfHeaven]

The England is also strange (from a North American perspective) because most authority rests with the national government you can have these more ambiguous boundaries.

[@Mario123007]

01:50 Actually, Tokyo Disneyland isn't really in tokyo, it is located in Chiba prefecture.

[@michaeltnk1135]

13:05 CORRECTION: San Pedro is NOT the South Bay. The South Bay refers to the south of the Santa Monica bay. The South Bay is El Segundo through Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach, to Palos Verdes. You made this same mistake in your short also

[@shard4756]

False. San Pedro is part of the South Bay (I live there), this is easily researchable information. The LA Metro website, The Los Angeles County Economic Development Center website, and Wikipedia all list San Pedro as part of the South Bay, along with many other places not on your list such as Inglewood, Carson, Torrance, Harbor City, and Wilmington. I couldnt find a single website that didnt list San Pedro as part of the South Bay.

[@Pharaoh_Roxy51012]

Columbus Ohio looks like something from the Holy Roman Empire

[@ncrvako]

or fallout.

[@XandateOfHeaven]

Oh sweet Jesus it's awful

[@TheBandit025Nova]

Okay so Go resurrect Napoleon

[@alejaan6778]

California geography could be an entire series in itself

[@radomu1]

Sorry, brief correction on Tokyo. Tokyo Disneyland isn't actually in Tokyo, but in Chiba, a separate prefecture.

[@JuniorfanTheEnlightment]

If you think Los Angeles city map is messed up, you should see the map of where I live in Huntsville, Alabama as it is literally in 3 counties and it has so many weird border jurisdictional anomalies as our actual airport, Huntsville International Airport and Toyota Field where the minor league baseball team that is called "Rocket City Trash Pandas" as "Rocket City" is Huntsville's nickname is not in Huntsville, but in a city west of Huntsville called Madison which is still surrounded by the city of Huntsville. Go take a look to see how messed up that map is!

[@BK_718]

My city (NYC) are 5 full counties or as we call them “boroughs” 8.5 million people spread out throughout those 5 counties.

[@corvus1374]

Oklahoma City is in three counties, too;

[@XandateOfHeaven]

It happens quite a bit. A lot of airports aren't technically in the cities they serve, or the cities created messed up borders to annex the land the airport is on. Chicago's airport is WAY outside what should be Chicago proper, but a thin strip of land connecting the airport to the city was annexed, so it's technically in the city but is almost entirely surrounded by other towns. Atlanta did the same thing, except their airport is an exclave. So it's not even connected.

[@semyonpronin3652]

Thank you, Barbs! I've always wanted to know the reason behind these disjointed neighbourhoods inside and outside the LA but never had the time or was too lazy to actually learn it myself.

[@obnoxiousNoxy]

This aspect of local government in the US always fascinated me. You have a gigantic metro area but just a teeny tiny blob in the center is actually, legally, part of the city. In Germany this usually doesn't happen because state governments can order local governments to merge/be annexed whether they like it or not. One can argue that this is undemocratic but it definitely simplifies urban planning.

[@zachv]

That's an interesting difference between our Federations

[@SiVlog1989]

As Jay Foreman said in his Unfinished London video on the subject, even the way the borders of Greater London are weird. For example, where I live, is on the edge of south western Greater London, but according to the postal address, it's in Surrey. A nearby town to where I live, is Epsom, yet despite it fitting the criteria for an out suburb of London, it's not a part of Greater London. Even the Borough boundaries of Kingston upon Thames is weird, it has a narrow panhandle that faces south west, happening to encompass the theme park Chessington World of Adventures. Another London based KZbinr, Geoff Marshall, (who lived in Charleston, South Cariona for a few years and in his final year there did a road trip around the Continental United States visiting places that shared names with stations on the London Underground map) talked about how the boundaries of Greater London are often oversimplified to "everything inside the M25 motorway", when in fact, it's entirely true. There are parts of the M25 that are entirely outside the Greater London boundaries and parts that are entirely within it.

[@ChuJungyin]

I live in a consolidated city-county. So while the city/county limits might have some weird lines, there's no question that everything within thoses lines is part of the city.

[@Cliffdog01]

Technically, Tokyo gets even more complicated because despite there being the Prefecture of Tokyo, there isn't actually a City of Tokyo (kinda sorta). What we call Tokyo is a group of wards with their own cities and their own mayors. It's Shibuya City within Shibuya Ward within Tokyo Prefecture. Prefectures are closer to a State (in US terms), so it's like labelling LA as California City.

[@tomtom2719]

In fresno one exclave is the water treatment plant and we have county islands that are built up surrounded by city. I grew up in a county island and currently live in one. Theyre primarily residential here.

[@AH-bm4ts]

Reminded me of Demolition Man where in the future all of these cities merged to become San Angelas.

[@sp00g37]

Basically any large American city does this. No one thinks of it as being a "proper", but they are the same idea. Like I like in Indianapolis. That has little townships in it, but within a stone throw are 5 or so cities that touch the city and are outside the county; fishers, Noblesville, Carmel, greenwood, Westfield, etc. all of that to me is Indianapolis. Its all the same general city line that has grown together and amalgamated. Fort Wayne probably has the same idea, multiple cities attached at the hip to make the whole fort Wayne area. If you look at maps for broadcasting like radio, then it'll extend almost an hour out.

[@timmmahhhh]

Indianapolis is a little unique in that in 1970 they created Unigov, which basically Incorporated all of Marion County into the city. The enclaves were already their own cities such as Lawrence, Speedway, and Beech Grove. While Indy confines itself to Marion County, cities like Aurora, Illinois straddle four counties.

[@sp00g37]

@@timmmahhhh I never thought too hard about Indy and Marion county being the same thing essentially. I know they but, but never put the 1 and 1 together

[@wheeliebeast7679]

​@@timmmahhhh Jacksonville has a similar arrangement with Duval County, the city limits cover like 99% of the county.

[@maxfi878]

New York City, San Francisco and Washington DC are notable exceptions.

[@Cool_world1234-o]

1:29 in lithuania we have a city Klaipėda with 5 different citys in it and 9 cities bordering it

[@pauljeraldhernandez9847]

In the Philippines, the capital city of Manila is actually one part of a larger region of 16 cities and 1 municipality called the National Capital Region (also known as Metro Manila, hence some foreigners mistake the other cities as part of Manila proper). The region was created in the 70s during the Marcos administration; prior to that, the areas were part of different provinces except for Manila and Quezon City.

[@stayfaded69]

I was born in Beverly hills. Lived in central LA, then moved to the valley, then to the San Gabriel valley (east LA county) now I'm in the biggest county in the Continental states.

[@billcook4768]

Forget it Barbs. It’s Chinatown.

[@Limb0girraf]

Map guy, map guy, map map map guy

[@eddiemurphy5566]

Long Beach local here. I've always thought that the port corridor was one of the stupidest looking things ever, but I always thought it was due to port revenue. Even Long Beach has Signal Hill within its city boundaries because of oil.

[@geogamr2493]

I was literally just in San Fernando 37 hours ago. Also, take a gander at the borders for Birmingham, Alabama. It’s pretty weird.

[@hj-mr5gg]

Small correction at 7:35 / 11:15, unincorporated means there is NO city government there (the county operates all functions for these areas). Burbank, Glendale, Inglewood, Culver City etc are NOT unincorporated because they operate as a municipality (basically their own city government overlaying over the county). Also at 9:15 / 10:50, that area isn't actually incorporated into the city of Torrance, they simply use Torrance postal addresses. If you go a few blocks west you will be within the borders of LA City but the properties still use Torrance addresses great video, not trying to hate just educate

[@NotJulius44]

your beijing example was the beijing "province" or municipality

[@descalzitao6779]

Yeah honestly all the four Chinese municipalities are extend well past the metropolitan area of their respective city (especially Chongqing which has the same superficy as Austria) and often surrounding province cities will have urban areas blending with the self-governing municipality's.

[@wheeliebeast7679]

The examples you are seeing from the US are municipalities too. Though American municipalities tend not to be regional in nature.

[@NotJulius44]

@@descalzitao6779 Yeah. They say Chongqing is the biggest city by population, and i just roll my eyes. that's the chongqing "province*" not exactly a province* but you know what i'm saying, anyway the true population from the 2010 census was around 7.5 million and not 32 million for the municipality Summary: Chongqing "Province" population: 32 million, which includes other rural towns. Chongqing Prefecture (built-up area) population: 7.5 million from 2010 census

[@descalzitao6779]

@@NotJulius44 Chongqing, like Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, is what is called a "self-governing municipality", or 自治市 in Chinese. This means that the municipality, which is normally the level just below the province in the Chinese administration, doesn't depend of any provinicial government and directly administer itself. However, the area that is placed under the administration of a municipality, be it self-governing or otherwise, can and often do extend far beyond its actual metropolitan urban area, typically encompassing nature reserves, urban areas and often whole different cities. Chongqing is by far the most egregious exemple of this but it's really not the only one. For example yesterday I went to the city of Haining which is for all intent and purposes a whole city with its own economy, metropolitan area, transportation, etc but administratively is just considered a xian (=county) of the municipality of Jiaxing. So basically what you've just said but with more precisions haha

[@silverfishofdoom1312]

I’m from Altadena which is a small unincorporated area north of Pasadena but Altadena was able to stay disconnected from LA because it used to be a part of Pasadena and some of pasadenas utilities including water in some areas are present in Altadena, LA county takes care of most other utilities but the remnants of being a part of pasadena can be seen with the strange borders between Altadena and pasadena

[@meggysplace1675]

Wow i love the effort and the whole format of this video! More of this mini docu discussion on city anomalies!

[@DreHill1]

Tokyo isn't even a official city. "Despite most of the world recognizing Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments which make up the metropolis"

[@LindsayHands]

I guess Cities in America are defined differently to cities in Australia. For example I live in Sydney, but not in the City of Sydney. To make it even more confusing there is also a suburb called Sydney, which is located in the Central Business District.

[@Chirag.D]

For Delhi: There is an area known as NCR (National Capital Region) which consists of Delhi and its surrounding 24 districts from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. It was developed to encompass the huge population that Delhi has and more land was needed for its expansion (kind of similar to New york, New Jersey, Queens, etc.). Delhi is a State (kinda) in India with New Delhi (one of its districts) as its capital and the Capital of India. NCR has 4 major cities of Gurugram (formerly Gurgaon), Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar (formerly Noida) with Delhi state as its centre. When someone says Delhi outside of NCR, they mean NCR. For example, if I ask a Gurugram guy in Mumbai where is he from? He would probably say Delhi, rather than specifing Gurugram. If you get confused by everything here, its fine, even many of us Indians gets confused by this NCR concept.

[@aaronfudge3742]

Awesome Video Barbs. Would love to see more stuff like this talking about weird anomalies at the city and state level

[@amadeosendiulo2137]

9:35 One more lane, it will fix traffic.

[@nachuanluo8864]

This video is so interesting and refreshing on the entire KZbin site. and hope to see more of this type of content in the future!

[@MrJmdamian89]

Bro sounds burnt out on LA.

[@gambit85]

@@MrJmdamian89 He's always hated the city yet doesn't move. As a native Angeleno, I'm over it. If you're so miserable here, stop hinting and it and move...no one's stopping you.

[@zachv]

@@gambit85 or maybe actually fix your cities's problems and stop making excuses for your dictators that run your city you're not being virtuous

[@Salamanderfs]

As a former Angeleno I was always interested in the little nuances of the city of LA's geography. I'm only here to raise my grievances about you revealing the 6th St back to 110 shortcut that I've used for years while living down there and still use when I need to go that way when visiting LA from the Bay Area. I hope you continue to make videos for a long time Barbs and love your segway into city geography and micro-geography.

[@abyssyt2256]

This was a really interesting and well shot video. Love to see more like this!

[@meszaroslali_2006]

Well, my city has a pretty weird geography too. Zselíz (Želiezovce in Slovak, pronounced Zheleez or Zheliezovce) is currently made up of 7 districts. There used to be three separate villages: Zselíz, Garammikola (Mikula) and Szódó (Svodov), and Zselíz also includes 4 other hamlets, Nagypuszta (Veľký Dvor), Karolinamajor (Karolína), Rozinamajor (Rozina) and Árokamjor (Jarok) Mikola was annexed to Zselíz in 1967 and Szódó in 1976 to keep its city status, which it had received in 1960. Mikola is now incorporated with Zseliz. The border between the two is Kert utca or Záhrádná ulica (Garden Street). Szódó is physically separate, although it is quite close to Mikola. And these two villages could easily have been their own municipality, but no, the idiot commies have merged them with Zselíz. It is a wonder that Peszektergenye (Sikenica) did not remain part of Zselíz for a long time (1986-92) and that Nyírágó (Nýrovce) was not annexed to it. On the other hand, if you look at the border between Mikola and Szódó on the Garam/Hron river, it's something of a disaster. The river was regulated in the 70's and the borders still follow the old bed. And it's a mess. On the left bank of the river, you can cross the border with the neighbouring village (Nemesoroszi/Kukučínov) about 5 times (if the hunters don't shoot you in the process :D) Oh, and the city centre is full of brutalist apartment blocks... It's not the best to live here, because we are in the middle of nowhere, even though Budapest is only 110km away :/

[@Realitycheck18]

I lived in Edison, NJ sometime. And there is another city called "Metuchen" which was completely surrounded by Edison. Now, here is the fun part. The city of Metuchen is a literal speed/traffic trap. The NJ-27 passes through Metuchen and the speed limit dramatically drops to 25 Mph from 45 Mph while entering the city and the one speed change sign was easy to miss. Next, the cops would stop you even for crossing when the light was Yellow which mostly gets dismissed at court (if there is dashcam video), but the cops hope you'd roll over & pay up the fine or pay the fine to avoid wasting one or more days at court. I've known people getting fined for not having headlights on right around dusk. I've also seen cops (not parking maids) waiting near parking meters for the clock to reach 0, so that they can place a ticket. You may wonder how a city can be so parasitic & won't the people vote such city mayors/administration out. It's simple. They target mostly drivers from other cities, especially Edison. People living in Edison cannot avoid driving through Metuchen for the most part. Once stopped, from the driver's license the cops know the address of the driver. So, the local Govt's coffers are filled up with fines charged to neighboring city drivers. IMO Metuchen isn't a city, but just a big old scam.

[@alexibeshears7549]

This is relatable, actually. My small hometown in KY has a city that is almost fully encircled by my city and it has a narrow pathway that follows a road all the way out to a bridge and stops there because another city in the county claimed the whole of the lake a few years prior. What's crazy is that the homes or property along the road got to choose if they were part of the city or not. My house could have become part of the city because, even though it's not on the road, it's close enough. All it would have done was send a poli e car by my house once a day and increase taxes. Not worth it. No property in my area took that chance.

[@dylan8435]

Non-americans: Why your city limits are like this? Americans: A LOT of reasons. Non-americans: Money and Taxes? Americans: Money and Taxes.

[@anderporascu5026]

Similar to Houston, Katy considers itself separate as does Harrison County, Galveston, Bay City and several others but to anyone outside it is all Houston.

[@Maller81]

You are correct it is a gold mine to understand what land is in the city.

[@JoeBeaudette]

I live in Vancouver. Well, I live in Burnaby. But it’s basically the same thing. Vancouver has just about 700K ppl and Metro Vancouver has nearly 3M. There’s no crazy “shoestrings” or “knots” or anything like that but we do have things like Langley City surrounded by Langley Township, North Vancouver surrounded by North Vancouver District Municipality and Port Coquitlam surrounded by Coquitlam. The University of BC campus, along with a couple forests and a golf course, is also a separate legal entity from the City of Vancouver called the University Endowment Lands. In all, Metro Vancouver is something like 30 distinct entities, including several First Nations communities enclaved here and there deep within the city - Umm… cities? When I first moved here in 2015 (from Winnipeg, which was itself formerly also super fragmented but mostly unified into one jurisdiction in 1970), I lived in New Westminster (which ppl here just call New West). We (my wife and I) went on vacation on a resort in Mexico, and when people asked me where we were from, I would say New Westminster and then explain that it was part of Vancouver but separate from the city of Vancouver. I soon started noticing their faces twist in boredom and by the end of those two weeks, I was just saying we’re from Vancouver. Then we moved to Burnaby and then into Vancouver proper and for 2 glorious years there was no explanation needed. Now we’re back in Burnaby, but to anyone not familiar with the area, if they ask, I just live in Vancouver. What’s even weirder is that Vancouver is on the coast and most of the rest of the city actually stretches out mostly to the east and a bit north and south along the coast. So Vancouver isn’t even in the middle of Vancouver - it’s more like New West. Also, Vancouver isn’t even the oldest city. That would also be New West, which was founded as the capital of mainland BC in 1858 and incorporated in 1860 long before the place that would eventually be named Vancouver first began as a sleepy logging town locally named Gastown, after the owner of the local tavern, “Gassy Jack” Deighton, in 1867. (No, he didn’t fart a lot. He was talkative and told great stories about his former days as a sailor and prospector. Back then, people who were known for talking a lot were referred to as “gassy”. Well… maybe he did fart a lot but we don’t know that and it’s besides the point. I digress) Gastown would then be given the official name Granville in 1870 once the townsite was laid out by the British colonial government. It would then be finally named Vancouver upon its incorporation as a city in 1886. New West remained larger than Vancouver until shortly after 1900. Really, the entire region, other than New West, began as a tight, expansive cluster of villages - some oriented toward logging, others fishing, others agriculture, etc - that grew into one another. You can still see that in the presence of “town centres” all over the place, like mini-downtowns dotting the map throughout. Vancouver’s downtown (what may otherwise be called Granville town centre) is just far and away the largest because it had the biggest boom after it was chosen to be the Canadian Pacific Railway’s terminus in 1884 and the project was completed 2 years later, the same year as the city’s incorporation. Finally, by the end of the 2020s, Vancouver is actually forecasted to fall to 2nd place in population behind Surrey, which is itself made of 7 town centres and the residential spaces in between. So yeah, Vancouver’s border may not be as mangled as some US cities in the but it has its fair share of rather unique and charming geographical idiosyncrasies.

[@pajamaman2989]

This is a great video Barbs, doin good work out here man!

[@octaviosander8898]

Really awesome video, Barbs!

[@JordanPeace]

8:59 I don’t think this is actually a split, it’s just that Google Maps refuses to extend municipal boundaries across bodies of water. That part of the LA River is still in Los Angeles, so you aren’t actually leaving the city as you suggest

[@dvtt]

You could do a video on all the different cursed municipalities of Chicagoland but it would be like 10 hours long. Half of them have very similar names too (ie - different permutations of river, lake, oak, park, forest, view, etc.)

[@DerekWitt]

I noticed that you had a map of the Kansas City earlier in the video. KCK and KCMO have always been independent from the get go. KCMO was founded in 1853 as the City of Kansas. It was renamed to Kansas City in 1854 upon the creation of Kansas Territory. KCK didn’t form until 1872 via consolidation of smaller settlements. The numbered streets of KCK are north-south. However, the numbered streets in KCMO are east-west. It irks me that some people think that Kansas City isn’t in Kansas. But, most people think of KCMO when they see “Kansas City.” But alas.

[@2712animefreak]

I guess the difference is that in the US cities and neighbourhoods get to have a say in this. I live in a city that has a cluster of neighbouring villages incorporated as a borough. Why? Because someone said so at some point. They have to pay high taxes and the city has to have an agriculture department and subsidize bus lines that take over an hour each way. Why don't they change it? Well, that would probably require a constitutional amendment. Good luck getting two thirds of the parliament on board!

[@douglasstrother6584]

Gardena & Torrance: home of the second-best Asian cuisine in the world.

[@general-i15]

My personal "favorite" is Birmingham, AL. Huntsville, Columbus, Columbia, and Fort Worth are also up there.

[@Feex92]

Shinjuku crossing 😂

[@TheDevinWilliamsChannel]

Barbs, Kawasaki Heavy Industries is based in Osaka not Kawasaki. It’s sad I know 😅

[@altobuffalo7]

Tokyo Disneyland isn’t even in the special wards. Angry Chibans will be after you now.

[@miro1987]

No wonder building a comprehensive subway network in LA is so difficult when there are so many competing interests at the city level

[@ScreenSage_YT]

That's actually why NYC is shaped he way it is. It used to be a bunch of spearte cities, but in 1898 they all united to make building infrastructure projects easier.

[@DylanSargesson]

The difference here between the US and say the UK, is that your neighbourhoods are deciding what city they want to be a part of and merging/seceding at different times. But in the UK, reorganisation of local government comes from above, and the authorities themselves don't necessarily need to consent to having their borders changed/merged/abolished/created (although the vast majority of the time, they do consent). The City of London is a special case, but other than that most of our local authority borders make sense.

[@Mypromiselive]

Love Geography Talk Barbs ! Keep it up !

[@DisasterxUs]

I like this kind of geography trivia. Would be cool to cover other strange borders in future episodes. Thanks Barb

[@RapinatorOhYeah]

I though Special Geographic Area (SGA) in the Philippines is messy until I watch this video

[@jonadabtheunsightly]

In general (at least in the Midwest), the not-part-of-the-city-proper areas are *not* unincorporated; if they were, the city probably would have absorbed them. Generally speaking, it's usually exactly the reverse: those areas were *already* incorporated as distinct municipalities, and then the city grew out to (and eventually around) them. Sometimes, these surrounding communities grow large enough to touch one another, closing ranks as it were, and prevent city at the center of the urban area from growing its boundaries, resulting in a city whose core municipality is a tiny fraction of the whole urban area. For example, the south side of Cleveland is hemmed in by Parma, Brooklyn Heights, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Shaker Heights, and Cleveland Heights; and so Cleveland itself mostly stopped growing a long time ago, when the urban area of "greater Cleveland" was a small fraction of its current size. Other times, the big city in the middle grows faster than the surrounding ones and leaks out through the gaps in between them, which can lead to a much more complex city-boundary map, like Columbus. Local politics can also come into play, because sometimes smaller municipalities will agree to be absorbed by or merge with the larger one, but that tends not to happen when the big city has a negative reputation, either economically or in terms of things like grime and crime. Here again, we can contrast Cleveland, which has always had a bit of a shady, industrial reputation and was not able to annex most of its suburbs, versus Columbus, which, as the (relatively) pristine state capital, with a lot of white-collar economic activity, has had somewhat better luck in that regard (although even there, a number of cities have opted to remain separate, including a couple that are not all that far from downtown).

[@XenysXArt]

2:55 Bruh I didn’t think Fresno would be mentioned and called out like that But yeah, living in Fresno my whole life, it is crazy seeing the difference between Fresno proper and the unincorporated areas

[@muhammadhabibieamiro3639]

Is always good to see another video from this channel

[@Yurinkin]

Indeed. Even after being done with UN countries 😊

[@muhammadhabibieamiro3639]

@Yurinkin exactly

[@5thdawg917]

I see. Being from London, we also have this, I live right next to the City of London within Greater London. For those that do not know the difference, City of London is where the offices, tall buildings & rich people are from. They have their own Police, governing body etc. And also we have street signs that changes through the boroughs.

[@johndotto2773]

1:49 Just a correction, Tokyo Disneyland is technically not in Tokyo. It literally just borders the Tokyo Metropolis, but it's actually in the city of Urayasu in Chiba Prefecture. Of course, that is in the Greater Tokyo region too.

[@Schneggie87]

I’d love to see more videos like this on weird city/county/state/provincial borders!

[@cbrxwn]

One correction: @ 12:32 Universal is not located in Burbank. Technically, it’s in Studio City, but has its own infrastructure and is large enough for its own police station and fire department. They’ve rebranded the area around it as “Universal City”. Burbank is north of Universal. I think they’re separated by the 134

[@mitchbart4225]

Most of Universal City is unincorporated LA County. The section close to the 101 freeway is part of the LA City's Studio City neighborhood. The unincorporated area is served by the LA County Sheriff's department as all County unincorporated areas are.

[@noahnorman6877]

I’ll say one thing, the city where I live: New York probably has the most consistently drawn map of most cities in the United States, aside from the whole weird thing with Ellis Island being mostly in New Jersey while a small enclave is part of New York, or Marble Hill which is a small exclave of Manhattan attached to the Bronx.

[@saidhruvikraghavendra6243]

my guy told I will not bother u with this head ache but went on lo blabber about it anyway LMFAO

[@jrgarza87]

DUDE THE 50 STATES LIKE WAY YOU DID THE COUNTRIES!!!!

[@jacobklunder8552]

I don’t live in Copenhagen, but I live inside Copenhagen. I live in a city called Frederiksberg that is surrounded by Copenhagen, but is it’s own city AND municipality separate fro Copenhagen. You can literally go from one city and municipality to another by crossing a street.

[@Parker307]

I love that you actually turned your focus to your home area

[@michaelandersons3498]

Fun video, happy geography now is keeping up with content

[@JustDevon1]

1:48 Minor Correction: It’s Shibuya crossing not Shinjuku crossing

[@benlechner6352]

Love your vids, keep doing what you do

[@alexandernico8930]

This new content from barbs is actually growing on me each new video haha big ups 👍