LOS ANGELES, ARCHDIOCESE OF — City and archdiocese in the State of California in the United States of America. It comprises the counties of Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Ventura, all within the State of California.
It has an area of 9,508 square miles with 4,635,113 inhabitants, of whom 690,200 are Catholics, distributed in 234 parishes, 143 chapels, 43 missions with 16 stations, served by 482 diocesan priests and 285 religious; it has a major seminary (St. John's Seminary) and a minor seminary (Los Angeles College), 61 male religious communities and 171 female; 138 institutes of male education; among the higher institutes, special mention should be made of the *Loyola University of Los Angeles*, the *College of Arts and Sciences*, the *College of Business Administration*, the *College of Engineering*, and the *School of Law*, all entrusted to the Jesuits; 156 institutes of female education; 30 of assistance and care. In 1949 there were 2,538 conversions.
On May 1, 1850, Pius IX established the Diocese of Monterey, which in 1903 was changed to Monterey and Los Angeles; Pius XI, with his apostolic constitution of June 1, 1922, divided the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles into two, creating the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego (AAS, 14 [1922], pp. 539-541), assigning to it the eight counties of Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. But the same Pontiff, with the apostolic constitution *Nimis amplas* of July 11, 1936 (AAS, 28 [1936], pp. 488-90), separated the Diocese of San Diego from that of Los Angeles and at the same time elevated the latter to the rank of metropolitan see, assigning as its suffragans the Dioceses of San Diego, Monterey, Fresno, and Tucson.
The patron saint of the archdiocese is St. Vibiana; the first bishop was Mgr. F. Garcia Diego y Moreno (d. 1846).
LOS ANGELES — LOSANNE, GENEVA, AND FREIBURG