The Gateway Cities region, or Southeast Los Angeles County, is an urbanized region located in southeastern

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

, between the City of Los Angeles proper, Orange County, and the Pacific Ocean. The cluster of cities has been termed "Gateway Cities" in that they serve as a "gateway" between the LA and Orange counties, with the city of Cerritos equidistant from Downtown L.A., Long Beach, and Santa Ana in Orange County. As such, the area is central to the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), and has a population of approximately 2,000,000 residents. Despite a predominating urban fabric of single-family homes and low-rise

multifamily residential Multifamily residential, also known as multidwelling unit (MDU), is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can ...

structures, Southeast LA County comprises some of the most densely populated municipalities in the United States. As with other regions of Los Angeles, Southeast LA's demographics are notable for ethnic and age diversity. The Gateway Cities Council of Governments (GCCOG), the coordinating body for the Southeast LA Region, is located in the city of

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. **Paramount Picture ...

Cities of Southeast LA

Area residents generally identify as being part of urban Los Angeles, despite technically living in separate, independent municipalities. The following cities are members of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, though these cities at times may also be considered part of other LA regions, including the

San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley (), sometimes referred to by its initials as SGV, is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, with the city of Los Angeles directly bordering it to the west and occupying the vast majority of the southeastern ...

Region,

East Los Angeles East Los Angeles (), or East L.A., is an unincorporated community and census designated place (CDP) situated within Los Angeles County, California, United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, East Los Angeles is designated as ...

Region, the

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of Downtown Los Angeles, downtown. It is de ...

Region, the Southeast LA (or SELA) region, and the Los Angeles Harbor Region. * Artesia *

Bell A bell /ˈbɛl/ () is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be m ...

* Bell Gardens * Bellflower * Cerritos *

Commerce Commerce is the organized Complex system, system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions that directly or indirectly contribute to the smooth, unhindered large-scale exchange (distribution through Financial transaction, transactiona ...

* Compton * Cudahy * Downey *

Hawaiian Gardens Hawaiian Gardens is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the smallest city in the county in area (approximately 1.0 mi2) and was incorporated on April 9, 1964. The population was 14,149 at the 2020 United States ce ...

Huntington Park Huntington Park is a city located in the South Central region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The area includes the separate communities of Florence, California, Florence, Firestone Park, California, Firestone Park, Graham, ...

* La Habra Heights * La Mirada * Lakewood *

Long Beach Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...

* Lynwood * Maywood * Montebello * Norwalk *

* Pico Rivera *

Santa Fe Springs Santa Fe Springs (''Santa Fe'', Spanish for "Holy Faith") is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is one of the Gateway Cities of southeast Los Angeles County. The population was 19,219 at the 2020 census, up from 16,22 ...

* Signal Hill * South Gate * Vernon * Whittier Also members of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments: *

Avalon Avalon () is an island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appeared in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 ''Historia Regum Britanniae'' as a place of magic where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was made and later where Arthur was taken to recove ...

(on Catalina Island) *

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

Port of Long Beach The Port of Long Beach, administered as the Harbor Department of the City of Long Beach, is a container port in the United States, which adjoins Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for US–Asian trade, the port occupies of land wi ...

City of Industry The City of Industry is a city in the San Gabriel Valley, in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is almost entirely industrial, containing over 3,000 businesses employing 67,000 people, with only 264 residents as of ...

Higher education

Universities

The region hosts the following colleges and universities:

Community colleges

Infrastructure

Air

Southeast LA County's

Long Beach Airport Long Beach Airport is a public airport northeast of downtown Long Beach, California, Long Beach, in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is also called Daugherty Field, named after local aviator Earl Daugherty. The airport was an ...

(LGB) provides Southeast LA regular direct flights to and from approximately a dozen cities in the Western United States.

Sea and heavy rail

The

, located in Southeast LA, is the second busiest port in the United States, Significant freight

rail Rail or rails may refer to: Rail transport *Rail transport and related matters *Railway track or railway lines, the running surface of a railway Arts and media Film * ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini * ''Rail'' (1967 fil ...

infrastructure runs through Vernon, Commerce, Industry, Santa Fe Springs, and Pico Rivera; as well as lines running between the Port of Long Beach and Vernon & Commerce.

Commuter and light rail

The LA Metro connects Southeast LA County to

Greater Los Angeles Greater Los Angeles is the most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. state of California, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino County and Riverside County in the eas ...

via the following commuter and light rail lines: * A Line (formerly the "Blue Line"), connecting to

downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

and the

* C Line (formerly the "Green Line"), connecting to LAX and the

Beach Cities The Beach Cities are a collection of three independently incorporated oceanfront cities in Los Angeles County south of El Segundo and north of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, comprising the cities of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beac ...

* Southeast Gateway Line (planned and funded under Measure M)

Freeways

Given its high population, Southeast LA is noticeably crisscrossed with regional freeway infrastructure, connecting it to other parts of

, Orange County, and the

Inland Empire The Inland Empire (commonly abbreviated as the IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County and Or ...

. The following freeways directly service Southeast LA County: *

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels thro ...

also known as the

Santa Ana Freeway The Santa Ana Freeway is one of the principal freeways in Southern California, connecting Los Angeles and its southeastern suburbs including the freeway's namesake, the city of Santa Ana. The freeway begins at its junction with the San Diego F ...

* Interstate 405 also known as the San Diego Freeway * Interstate 605 also known as the San Gabriel River Freeway * Interstate 105 also known as the Glenn Andersen Freeway *

Interstate 710 Route 710, consisting of the non-contiguous segments of State Route 710 (SR 710) and Interstate 710 (I-710), is a major north–south state highway and auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of the ...

also known as the Long Beach Freeway * Interstate 110 also known as the Harbor Freeway * California State Route 91 also known as the Artesia Freeway * California State Route 60 also known as the Pomona Freeway *

California State Route 22 State Route 22 (SR 22) is an east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California that connects Long Beach with northern Orange County. It runs between Pacific Coast Highway ( State Route 1) in Long Beach and the Costa Mesa Freeway ( ...

also known as the 7th Street Extension * California State Route 1 Pacific Coast Highway also known as the Pacific Coast Highway

References

External links

Gateway Cities Council of Governments
{{California Los Angeles County, California, regions