We are sponsoring the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles! Come and check out our photos and community details.
The San Fernando Valley or The Valley is an urbanized valley located in the north-western section of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States.
The San Fernando Valley is 345 square miles (894 km2) bounded by the Santa Susana Mountains to the northwest, the Simi Hills to the west, the Santa Monica Mountains to the south, the Verdugo Mountains to the east, and the San Gabriel Mountains to the northeast. The Sierra Pelona Mountains (to the north) can be seen in parts of the San Fernando Valley from the gap between the Santa Susana and San Gabriel (Newhall Pass). The Los Angeles River starts at the confluence of Calabasas and Bell Canyon creeks behind Canoga Park High School in Canoga Park and flows east along the southern areas of the Valley. One of the river's only unpaved section can be found at the Sepulveda Basin. Another waterway, the Tujunga Wash, drains much of the western San Gabriel Mountains and, after passing through the Hansen Dam Recreation Center, winds south through the eastern communities of the Valley before merging with the Los Angeles River in Studio City. Other tributaries of the Los Angeles River include Caballero Creek, Bull Creek, Pacoima Wash, and Verdugo Wash. The valley's elevation varies from between about 250 and 1,200 ft. above sea level.
Most of the San Fernando Valley is within the City of Los Angeles, California, although several smaller cities are within the Valley as well; Burbank and Glendale are in the southeast corner of the Valley, Hidden Hills and Calabasas are in the southwest corner, and San Fernando, which is completely surrounded by the City of Los Angeles, is in the northeast Valley. Universal City, an enclave in the southern part of the Valley, is unincorporated land housing the Universal Studios filming lot. Mulholland Drive, which runs along the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains, marks the boundary between the Valley and the communities of Hollywood and Los Angeles' westside.
Los Angeles' administrative center for the Valley is in Van Nuys. The area in and around the former Van Nuys City Hall is home to a police station, municipal and superior courts and Los Angeles city and county administrative offices. Northridge is home to California State University Northridge. The 1994 Northridge Earthquake (January 17, 1994 which measured 6.7 on the Richter Scale), one of the few major earthquakes to have struck directly under a major city, was epicentered in neighboring Reseda just east of the intersection of Elkwood Street and Baird Avenue. An earlier major temblor (in 1971), The Sylmar Quake (February 9, 1971 and measured 6.5 on the Richter Scale), was also a killer, having destroyed the Olive View and Veterans Administration Hospitals, and rendered the east west Interstate 210 useless for a number of years due to severe damage. Prior to development, before the arrival of the Los Angeles Owens Valley Aqueduct water, the valley was a bleak semi-desert, too dry for extensive agriculture over more than a small part of the valley. The water brought farming with some major crops including corn, cotton, persimmons, lemons, oranges, and walnuts. The advent of three new industries - motion picture, automobile, and aircraft - spurred urbanization and population growth. World War II and a subsequent post war boom accelerated this growth so that by 1960, the valley had a population of well over 1 million.
The Valley shares the Los Angeles Basin's dry, sunny weather. Although the southwestern edge of the Valley is less than 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean, the Valley can be considerably hotter than the Los Angeles Basin during the summer months and cooler during the winter months. Temperatures in the Valley normally reach as high as the nineties and triple-digits during latter part of summer and early fall, from around late June through early October. The West Valley community of Woodland Hills has set the highest recorded temperature in the City of Los Angeles of 119 °F (49 °C) in 2006, the coldest recorded temperature was in Canoga Park 18 °F (-8 °C) in 1989. Also, rainfall accumulations tend to be slightly higher in the Valley during the rainy season in comparison to the Los Angeles Basin and the coast. The valley is more likely to get snow during winter months than the Los Angeles basin, although snow in San Fernando valley is quite rare. The last measurable accumulation of snow in the valley was in 1988 while the last measurable accumulation of snow in the Los Angeles basin was in 1960. The Valley is prone to smog, particularly in the summer, because of the mountain ranges surrounding it and because vertical motion in the atmosphere is often blocked by temperature inversions. Environmental regulations and improvements through the years have cut the smog levels almost in half since they peaked in the 1960s.
The Tataviam, also known as the Fernandeño, tribe of Indians and the Tongva had inhabited the valley for at least 6,000 years before the Spanish built the San Fernando Mission in 1797. [1]
The official first rancho and adobe settlement in the South-East part of The San Fernando Valley was occupied by The Reyes family, in what is now Encino, California, but a rancho settlement in the North-East part of The San Fernando Valley was occupied by The Cota Family, near the mission at San Fernando, California.
The treaty ending the Mexican-American War in California was signed near the mouth of the Cahuenga Pass (at the southeast corner of San Fernando Valley) at an a adobe owned by The Verdugo Family at Campo de Cahuenga in 1847.
After the construction of the Owens Valley-Los Angeles Aqueduct, the mostly rural area was annexed by the city of Los Angeles in 1915, more than doubling the size of the city. A highly fictionalized story based on these events is told in the film Chinatown (1974). Los Angeles continued to consolidate its territories in the San Fernando Valley by annexing Laurel Canyon (1923), Lankershim (1923), Sunland (1926), Tuna Canyon (1926), the incorporated city of Tujunga (1932), and Porter Ranch (1965). The additions expanded the Los Angeles portion of San Fernando Valley from the original 169 square miles (438 km2) to 224 square miles (580 km2) today. Six cities incorporated independent from Los Angeles: Glendale (1906), Burbank (1911), San Fernando (1911) Hidden Hills (1961), Calabasas (1991). Universal City is an unincorporated enclave that is home to Universal Studios theme park and Universal CityWalk.
Cities
Unincorporated communities
Communities of the City of Los Angeles
James Engel KW Beverly Hills
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Hi James- that's a lot of work went into this post. Hope it brings lots of Google Juice you way. Have a super weekend.