L.A. County regions (Los Angeles, Long Beach: neighborhoods, beach, tuition)

[Florance]

Hi,

I'm not from L.A. and I'm doing a project on L.A. County. I was wondering if L.A. County has even larger regions than the already known areas like San Fernando Valley, Antelope Valley, San Gabriel Valley. As I mentioned, I want to know if there are larger areas than these, that have a specific name, known by the locals.
I also made a schetchy list of what I thought those super regions-areas could be and how I could name them for further reference in my project :
-Santa Clarita-Antelope Valley: huge area in the North of the county
-Angeles Forest-San Gabriel Valley: huge area in the East of L.A. county
-L.A.- Santa Monica Mountains : West of County
-South Bay-Harbor : in the South of L.A. County, obviously.
Please tell me if they are intuitive enough and whether I should rename them or not.

Thanks in advance

[Cream1]

Mapping L.A. - Los Angeles Times

[Harrier]

You are entirely neglecting the southeast part of the county which roughly stretches from south of the Puente Hills(the southern boundary of the San Gabriel Valey) along the LA/Orange County line and Coyote Creek to the Long Beach city limits, and then is bounded by the Los Angeles River back up north to the area just east of East LA and south of the SGV at the Montebello Hills.

This area includes the Gateway Cities - which you may have heard about.
http://www.gatewaycog.org/map.html

Here is a Facebook Page with a rough map.
Southeast Los Angeles County | Facebook

Also - Howlester provided a link with pretty much the same map of Southeast LA County above.

[EuroDuderino]

Originally Posted by Harrier

This area includes the Gateway Cities - which you may have heard about.
Gateway Cities COG

Hm, I kinda always figured Whittier and Pico Rivera to still belong to East L.A. and Compton to still belong to South L.A. instead of South East.

How definite/official is this map? Or maybe my intuition was always wrong about those...

[Harrier]

Well I disagree with that map putting Compton and Long Beach in the Gateway Cities - but the cities choose to align as a Council of Governments for political and economic reasons - so i suppose if they want to be considered a GW city - its official.

I usually think of Compton as being in the Soiuth Bay and Long Beach being an area of its own. Whittier and Pico Rivera - depends on your perception - but I consider East LA to be limited to the actual unincorporated county area called East Los Angeles and including City of Commerce and City Terrace. That would also emcompass the "Eastside" which includes parts of the city of Los Angeles which are also considered to be part of East LA.

[Harrier]

I just noticed that unincorporated East Los Angeles is part of the Gateway Cities also. Again, I suppose that makes sense from a economic and political standpoint - but it doesn't seem to fit geographically. On the other hand - that could all be a product of my "intutition" as EuroDude called it - and everyone probally has there own perceptions of what belongs under what heading.