Beverly Hills, California, a city famed for its tree-lined streets, upscale shopping and celebrity inhabitants is home to about 35,000 people. Despite its rich reputation, the median Beverly Hills income is typical for an upper-middle-class suburb. However, the median price of an owner-occupied house in this area tops $1 million.

Beverly Hills has a familiar feel, even to many who have never been there. They've seen it before, in the 1960s television program The Beverly Hillbillies, the Beverly Hills Cop movies or the 1990s program Beverly Hills 90210, which made 90210 perhaps the world's most recognizable zip code. Ironically, most of 90210 lies in the city of Los Angeles, but the U. S. Postal Service considers all its addresses to be Beverly Hills addresses, prompting real estate agents to coin the term "Beverly Hills Post Office" as a way of upgrading their properties' appeal.

The most famous Beverly Hills attraction is Rodeo Drive, its streets sporting a veritable who's who of fashion, where some shops receive customers by invitation only. The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Anderton Court shops are located here. Informative trolley tours leave from Rodeo Drive May through December, showing visitors the surrounding Beverly Hills neighborhoods.

Proximity to Hollywood and popularity with celebrities who built their homes here in the early- and mid-twentieth century gives Beverly Hills a persistent star-cast. Hapless tourists purchase "Maps to the Star's Homes" from street-corner vendors and motor through the neighborhoods gawking, unaware that many (if not all) of the locations marked are no longer owned by the star in question.

After almost ten years, the Los Angeles Times still awards Spago Beverly Hills three and a half stars, saying "Spago is California at its best." Sushi-Sushi, Da Pasquale, Urasawa and Crustacean are also well-recommended. Along Robertson Blvd., just blocks from Rodeo Drive, diners find many moderately-priced-but-popular options including California Pizza Kitchen and Chin-Chin.

Beverly Hills is home to several hotels on the Conde Nast Gold List: The Beverly Hills Hotel, Four Seasons, Raffles L'Ermitage, Regent Beverly Wilshire and The Peninsula. Popular boutique hotels include Elan Modern, the Avalon, Maison 140 and Mosaic Hotel.