What is the name of the famous Hollywood landmark with large white letters on a hillside? The Hollywood Sign. It overlooks Hollywood in Los Angeles from Mount Lee in the Hollywood Hills and has become one of the world’s most recognizable symbols of the film industry.
The sign was erected in 1923 to advertise a real-estate development called Hollywoodland. Its original thirteen letters were built as a temporary billboard and were illuminated by thousands of bulbs. As the Hollywood name became internationally famous, the sign remained after the development campaign ended. In 1949, the final four letters—“LAND”—were removed, leaving “HOLLYWOOD.”
The deteriorating wooden sign was replaced with a steel structure in 1978. Each letter is roughly 45 feet tall, and the entire sign stretches about 450 feet across the hillside. A common mix-up is calling it merely a hillside-letter display: technically, it began as a commercial billboard, though it is now a city-owned cultural landmark.