South Bay, Los Angeles

South Bay, California
Region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
The South Bay and surrounding regions in Southern California
Country	United States of America
State	California
County	Los Angeles

The South Bay is a region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located in the southwest corner of Los Angeles County. The name stems from its geographic location stretching along the southern shore of Santa Monica Bay. The South Bay contains fifteen cities plus portions of the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated portions of the County of Los Angeles. The area is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the south and west and generally by the City of Los Angeles on the north and east.

The map at right uses the broadest definition of the region, including all communities south of Interstate 105 and Long Beach, with the exception of Compton, which is generally considered part of the South LA region. The South Bay includes:

The region is bordered on the north by LAX, on the northeast by the South Los Angeles region, on the east by the Gateway Cities, and on the southeast by Long Beach.

The Harbor (I-110), San Diego (I-405), Gardena (SR 91), and Century (I-105) Freeways provide the region with its principal transportation links. The Los Angeles MTA's Blue Line (opened in 1990) is a light rail line running between Downtown Los Angeles and Downtown Long Beach. It is the first of the MTA's modern rail lines since the 1961 demise of the Pacific Electric Railway's Red Car system. The Green Line (opened in 1995, together with the Glenn Anderson Freeway), a freeway-median light rail line, also serves the South Bay. It runs between Redondo Beach and Norwalk in the median of the Century Freeway (Interstate 105), providing indirect access to Los Angeles International Airport via a shuttle bus and future automated people mover. Several ports and harbors in the South Bay provide access to Santa Catalina Island, a popular resort. In addition, Los Angeles International Airport borders El Segundo to the north in the neighborhood of Westchester, Los Angeles.