A Los Angeles Guide to the San Gabriel Valley

For Los Angeles residents, the San Gabriel Valley can feel both nearby and distinct. The region directly borders the city on its western side and occupies most of the southeastern portion of Los Angeles County, making it an important part of the broader Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Often shortened to SGV, the San Gabriel Valley is a roughly 200-square-mile area shaped by mountains, hills and the San Gabriel River. The river runs south through the center of the valley and gives the region its name. Its name ultimately comes from Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, which was first built in the Whittier Narrows in 1771.

The valley’s geography helps explain its connections to surrounding parts of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains form its northern edge, while the San Rafael Hills and Repetto Hills mark areas to the west and southwest. Beyond the Repetto Hills lies the Los Angeles Basin. To the southeast, the Puente Hills separate the valley from the coastal plain of Orange County. The Chino Hills and San Jose Hills lie to the east, beyond which are the Pomona Valley and the Inland Empire.

The Crescenta Valley sits to the northwest, adding another nearby geographic reference point for people moving between Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mountain foothills.

The valley was once primarily agricultural. Today, it is almost entirely urbanized, with its communities woven into the region’s dense network of cities and neighborhoods. That transformation is part of the SGV’s larger story: a landscape once defined by farms now functions as a major urban region connected to Los Angeles, Orange County, the Pomona Valley and the Inland Empire.

The San Gabriel Valley is also recognized as one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the United States. For LGBTQ Angelenos, that diversity is an important part of understanding the communities east of Los Angeles—not as a single uniform place, but as a broad and varied region with its own geographic identity and connections.

Knowing where the SGV begins and what surrounds it can make the area easier to place on the map. From Los Angeles, the valley extends eastward between the San Gabriel Mountains and the hills separating it from Orange County and the Inland Empire. Its name, landscape and urban character all point to the same reality: the San Gabriel Valley is a central piece of the wider Southern California region, not simply a suburb on Los Angeles’s edge.

Source and reuse information This backgrounder adapts factual material from “San Gabriel Valley” on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gabriel_Valley The adapted text is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. This story has not been independently reviewed or fact-checked.

Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pasadena-California/105396882827337 - https://web.archive.org/web/20080311040210/http://www.tournamentofroses.com/rosebowlgame/ - https://web.archive.org/web/20100907032328/http://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org/Site/index.html - https://web.archive.org/web/20111103091821/http://www.sgvbj.com/ - https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2018/02/22/report-san-gabriel-valley-asian-american-population-larger-than-those-in-42-states/ - https://advancingjustice-la.org/sites/default/files/A_Community_of_Contrasts_SGV_2018.pdf Image rights Photograph description: My vantage point is Hsi Lai Temple (西來寺), the premier Buddhist temple in Southern California, located in Hacienda Heights 15 miles east of Los Angeles. Looking north-northeast. I am looking in the general direction of the San Gabriel River canyon above Azusa. To the west (left) are Duarte and Irwindale, to the east (right) are Glendora and San Dimas. Creator: InSapphoWeTrust from Los Angeles, California, USA. License: CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASan_Gabriel_Valley_from_Hsi_Lai_Temple_(6475304843).jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.