Culver City is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles but also has a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. The city is surrounded by the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Mar Vista, West Los Angeles and Palms to the north; Westchester to the south; the Baldwin Hills and Ladera Heights unincorporated areas to the east; and the L.A. neighborhoods of Venice and Playa Vista to the west, along with the unincorporated area of Marina Del Rey.
Since the 1920s, Culver City has been a significant center for motion picture and later television production, in part because it was the home of MGM Studios. It also was the headquarters for the Hughes Aircraft Company from 1932 to 1985. National Public Radio West and Sony Pictures Entertainment now have headquarters in the city.
Hundreds of movies have been produced on the lots of Culver City's studios, including The Wizard of Oz, The Thin Man, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Rebecca, the Tarzan series, and the original King Kong. In fact, the Yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz is still inside the lot on Stage 27 of Sony Studios.
In the 1990s, Culver City leaders launched a successful revitalization program in which it renovated its downtown as well as several shopping centers in the Sepulveda Boulevard corridor near Fox Hills Mall. The influx of many art galleries to various parts of the city, formally designated as the Culver City Art District, prompted the New York Times in 2007 to praise the new art scene and call Culver City a "nascent Chelsea."
Culver City has its own school district, Culver City Unified School District. It has five elementary schools, a middle school, two high schools (regular and continuation), a Community Day School, an Office of Child Development, and an Adult School. In addition, there is an Independent Study program where students of elementary, junior high, or high school age can make a weekly appointment to drop off and pick up homework, which is to be completed throughout the week.
STAR Prep Academy, a private middle and high school, offers a rigorous, alternative learning environment. It was established in 2004 and shares its campus with the STAR ECO Station, an exotic wildlife rescue center. It is one of the few schools in the United States in which students have the unique opportunity to work with exotic and endangered animals on a daily basis as part of their school-day curriculum.
