West Los Angeles

West Los Angeles is a term for two residential and commercial areas in the city of Los Angeles, California, mapped differently by different sources and on opposite sides of the Interstate 5 Freeway. Each of them lies within the larger Westside region of Los Angeles County.

Geography

According to the Mapping L.A. website of the Los Angeles Times, West Los Angeles lies south of Santa Monica Boulevard, west of Beverly Glen Boulevard, north of Pico Boulevard and east of Sepulveda Boulevard, but the Automobile Club of Southern California does not mark boundaries on its map but centers the neighborhood south of Santa Monica Boulevard, west of Interstate 405, north of Olympic Boulevard and east of Barrington Avenue.

In 2003, a Los Angeles Times correspondent noted that:

Her report on the meaning of West Los Angeles also included Rancho Park and the Westdale Trousdale area near National Boulevard and Barrington Avenue.

Population

Mapping L.A. gives the population of its 1.05-square-mile neighborhood as 12,659 according to the 2000 U.S. census, with a rise to 13,582 in 2008 as estimated by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning. Its density of 12,061 people was about average for the city of Los Angeles. It had an especially high percentage of white people compared with the county at large, 76.7%, and the neighborhood was not especially diverse for the county. Others ethnicities were Asian, 11.4%; Latino, 5.3%; black, 2.3%, and other, 4.1%.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles (ⁱ/lɒs ˈændʒəlᵻs/ loss AN-jə-ləs or loss AN-jə-liss) (Spanish for "The Angels"), officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L.A., is the second-largest city in the United States after New York City, the most populous city in the state of California, and the county seat of Los Angeles County.

Situated in Southern California, Los Angeles is known for its mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, sprawling metropolis, and as a major center of the American entertainment industry. Los Angeles lies in a large coastal basin surrounded on three sides by mountains reaching up to and over 10,000 feet (3,000 m).

Historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was officially founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood. The city experienced rapid growth with the discovery of oil.