These beaches are among LA's favourites. But they're fake

Today, Santa Monica Beach is one of the most iconic in the world, stretching more than three miles (4.8km) with 245 acres (1sq km) of sand. In 2023, 4.6 million people visited Santa Monica alone. But it wasn't always like that – those golden beaches were once a rocky, wild coastline, until city officials decided to take matters into their own hands.

In the early 1900s, Miami was the place to be. Miles of golden sand, the warm, turquoise ocean and temperature climate made the Florida city a hotspot for tourists.

Across the country, over on the Pacific Ocean, the beaches of Los Angeles were rocky and wild – steep cliffs dropped off to the cold, crashing waves and the Southern Pacific train chuffed along the railway tracks that ran parallel to the ocean. "City officials wanted to turn Santa Monica [one of the beach towns] into the American Riviera," explains Elsa Devienne, assistant professor of history at Northumbria University in the UK, who recently published a book about the history of Los Angeles' beaches. "Santa Monica wanted to establish itself as the resort city for the rich and famous. These beach cities had big ambitions."

The small stretches of sand that were available in Santa Monica and Venice were already heavily crowded by the new families that had descended on the city during the 1920s population boom.

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