Venice, is a district in west Los Angeles, California. It is best known for its canals and beaches, but it also has a somewhat Bohemian residential area as well as a colorful boardwalk.

The Venice of America was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905, and it was annexed to Los Angeles in 1925. (There have been several movements to secede from Los Angeles since then, including currently.) In 1929 most of the canals were filled in to allow for automobile traffic. In the 1930s oil drilling supplanted amusement. Hundreds of wells covered the area and drilling waste clogged the remaining waterways. It was a short-lived boom, but the wells were still producing oil into the 1970s.

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