Sylmar is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. The northernmost neighborhood in the city, Sylmar is located east of Interstate 5 and north of the city of San Fernando. Sylmar was once the site of the world's second largest olive groves^{[citation needed]}.

Some 1500 years before the Spaniards settled, the Sylmar area was inhabited by the Tataviam Indians. In 1797, the Spaniards founded Mission San Fernando Rey de España in what is now the nearby community of Mission Hills. Father Iballa, Padre at the Mission from 1820 to 1834, was indirectly responsible for Sylmar’s olives. He recognized the similarity of the climate and soil to those found in Europe where olives had been cultivated for centuries. He sent to Spain for seedlings, and planted them around the mission. San Fernando became a city in 1874, leading to the naming of the unincorporated land surrounding San Fernando to Morningside. The area was renamed Sylmar after incorporation into the City of Los Angeles during the building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which passes through the north-west corner. Local stories state that the designer of the old aqueduct, William Mulholland, stood on the foothills near the site of the planned aqueduct and noted that the wind caused the green and silver leaves of the olive farms to look like waves crashing against the mountains.