SPACEPHOTOS

This photograph, except for the hilly regions in the southeastern quadrant, Chino Hills, and Puente Hills, features one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas. Many of the larger commercial and industrial complexes of southeastern metropolitan Los Angeles can be identified by their highly reflective surfaces (concrete and steel). By contrast, the isolated reddish areas map parks and golf courses. Many of the white, highly reflective linear features are combinations of river courses (concrete aqueducts) and the major freeways that parallel them—the Santa Ana, San Gabriel, and Los Angeles Rivers have accompanying freeways (Riverside, San Gabriel, and Long Beach, respectively). Visible are two major harbor facilities along the Long Beach coast and a vast street grid pattern that characterizes this dynamic region.