Santa Monica Mountains in the context of "Hidden Hills, California"

Los Angeles (LA) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3.88 million residents within the city limits as of 2024, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, behind New York City. Los Angeles has an ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.5 million residents.

The majority of the city proper lies in the Los Angeles Basin adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending partly through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to its east. It covers about 469 square miles (1,210 km), and is the county seat and most populated city of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estimated 9.86 million residents as of 2022. It is the third-most visited city in the U.S. with over 2.7 million visitors as of 2023.

The culture of Los Angeles is rich with arts and ethnically diverse. The greater Los Angeles metro area has several notable art museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the J. Paul Getty Museum on the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the Pacific, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), and the Hammer Museum. In the 1920s and 1930s Will Durant and Ariel Durant, Arnold Schoenberg and other intellectuals were the representatives of culture, in addition to the movie writers and directors. As the city flourished financially in the middle of the 20th century, culture followed. Boosters such as Dorothy Buffum Chandler and other philanthropists raised funds for the establishment of art museums, music centers and theaters. Today, the Southland cultural scene is as complex, sophisticated and varied as any in the world. Los Angeles is strongly influenced by Mexican American culture due to California formerly being part of Mexico and, previously, the Spanish Empire.

The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an anomalous group of east–west trending chains of mountains collectively known as the Transverse Ranges. The present basin is a coastal lowland area, whose floor is marked by elongate low ridges and groups of hills that is located on the edge of the Pacific plate. The Los Angeles Basin, along with the Santa Barbara Channel, the Ventura Basin, the San Fernando Valley, and the San Gabriel Basin, lies within the greater Southern California region. The majority of the jurisdictional land area of the city of Los Angeles physically lies within this basin.

On the north, northeast, and east, the lowland basin is bound by the Santa Monica Mountains and Puente, Elysian, and Repetto hills. To the southeast, the basin is bordered by the Santa Ana Mountains and the San Joaquin Hills. The western boundary of the basin is marked by the Continental Borderland and is part of the onshore portion. The California borderland is characterized by northwest trending offshore ridges and basins. The Los Angeles Basin is notable for its great structural relief and complexity in relation to its geologic youth and small size for its prolific oil production. Yerkes et al. identify five major stages of the basin's evolution, which began in the Upper Cretaceous and ended in the Pleistocene. This basin can be classified as an irregular pull-apart basin accompanied by rotational tectonics during the post-early Miocene.

Woodland Hills is a neighborhood bordering the Santa Monica Mountains in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California, United States.

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) is a national recreation area containing many individual parks and open space preserves, located primarily in Southern California's Santa Monica Mountains. Located in greater Los Angeles, two thirds of SMMNRA's parklands are in northwest Los Angeles County and the remaining third, including a Simi Hills extension, is in southeastern Ventura County. It is administered by the National Park Service in coordination with state, county, municipal, and university agencies.

In size, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is the largest urban national park in the world. It is also one of the best examples of a Mediterranean climate ecosystem and it protects one of the highest densities of archaeological resources in any mountain range in the world.

Calabasas (/ˌkæləˈbæsəs/, CAL-ə-BASS-əs; corruption of calabazas, Spanish for "squashes") is a city in the southwestern region of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Situated between the foothills of the Santa Monica and Santa Susana mountains, 29.9 miles (48.1 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Calabasas has a population of 22,491 (as of July 1, 2022).