In which U.S. city are the La Brea Tar Pits, a famous fossil site, located?

The La Brea Tar Pits are located in Los Angeles, California. They occupy Hancock Park in the heart of the city, where natural asphalt has seeped to the surface for tens of thousands of years.

The Spanish word brea means “tar” or “pitch,” and the site’s asphalt seeps trapped animals during the last Ice Age. Once an animal became stuck, predators and scavengers could also be drawn to the struggling prey and become trapped themselves. The asphalt preserved an extraordinary collection of bones, including those of mammoths, dire wolves, bison, ground sloths, and saber-toothed cats.

Most of the fossils are between about 10,000 and 50,000 years old, making the site especially valuable for studying Ice Age life in Southern California. The George C. Page Museum, next to the pits, displays many of the discoveries. A common mix-up is placing the site in another major U.S. city: the La Brea Tar Pits are specifically in Los Angeles, not Houston, Chicago, or New York.