I didn’t mean you, necessarily. I just meant that a lot of people–including many Angelenos–get confused about what is and isn’t L.A., despite the fact that the city has definite boundaries. No offense meant. Sorry.
Inglewood is a city, and is not part of L.A. Same applies to Long Beach, Santa Monica, Culver City, El Segundo, MB, HB, RB, and many other municipalities within L.A. County. Just because a municipality is surrounded by a larger municipality doesn’t make it part of that larger municipality.
But when people who are from places outside of southern California ask individuals who live in these places, “Where are you from?” Most will answer “LA”.
If some one from Nebraska asks a resident of El Segundo or Redondo Beach where they are from and they answer, “El Segundo” or “Redondo Beach”, the poor Cornhusker is not going to have a clue where they are from and they’ll just end up having to say, “LA”.
Do some people have something against being from “LA”?
No need to apologize. I was frustrated because I felt that I was not making myself understood. It wasn’t pointed at you, at least not intentionally.
Redondo Beach and El Segundo (and Manhattan beach and Torrence IMO though Torrence might be boarderline) are firmly part of LA even if they are separate municipalities. My thinking is that the residents of these areas think of themselves as living in Los Angeles more than they think of themselves as residents of, say, Manhattan Beach. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and for the most part West Hollywood are the same way. On the other hand it has been my experience that residents of Inglewood identify with Inglewood first and the greater Los Angeles area second which is why I say it is not counted as “part of LA” Inglewood is a lot like Pasadena in that respect. It’s a whole separate city with its own culture and history and identity that just happens to be really close to, or surrounded by, Los Angeles. It’s not just an unincorporated suburb.
This is sort of a gut level reaction based on people I know who live in the areas and my own feelings about these places having lived in LA and isn’t based on anything objective at all. To me Inglewood and Pasadena are as much “other” as Orange County. For the most part Long Beach is too, but parts of North Long Beach feel more like LA, so while I am tempted to put them in the not Los Angeles category, I am sort of on the fence.
Oh, I know I did, but thems the breaks. By the same rights that let me include numerous independent municipalities I can also chop off bits of the city that are too far away for my taste. 
Who knows, maybe your property taxes will go down now!
Geography plays a big role in my personal vernacular of what’s L.A., and the Santa Monica Mountains cut you off. Burbank gets a pass, though, since it’s not too deep into the valley.
LOL … the Valley never gets any respect … .
I tend to take these things literally, so if we’re talking about the population of L.A. I assume it means the city proper. There’s just no way that anything in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties can be considered L.A., they’re Southern California but not L.A.
An alternative way of looking at it might be to include outlying areas that are reached by the principal local urban rail transit system. I think this would work in most major cities.
Metrolink goes all the way to Oceanside. 
When non-SoCal people ask me where I’m from, I just say “LA” even though we’re smack dab in the middle of Orange County (see my location). My wife hates that and always says “No we’re not from LA”. I notice that my city is included in Pasta’s circle in post 12 though.
I would look at Google Maps ( Google Maps ) for a satellite view and look to see where there is a wide open space with no city streets to draw the line of what is “greater Los Angeles”.
Northwest: as far as Canoga Park and Porter Ranch
Northern border: Altadena, Lynwood, Glendora
Northeast: stops at San Dimas, Diamond Bar
Southeast: stops at Anaheim Hills, North Tustin, Rancho Santa Margarita
South: stops at San Juan Capistrano / Dana Point
It’s really the reverse. Trying to convince someone from Los Angeles / Santa Monica / Hollywood to set foot in Long Beach is pushing it. Asking them to go to Orange County? Forget about it. People from the OC go to LA a lot more than the other way.
Here’s the definitive map of Los Angeles.
2000 Census has LA at near 3.8 Million, so it is probably over 4 Million for sure.
If they are separate municipalities, then they are by definition not part of another municipality. Those cities are not L.A. This isn’t difficult.
Hey, wanna piss someone off? Pronounce San Pedro as ‘San PAY-dro’ to someone who lives there! (I worked with a woman of Hispanic descent who would vehemently correct people. 'It’s "San PEE-dro! :mad: ')
I disagree. They might not legally or literally be Los Angeles, but for all practical purposes Santa Monica and West Hollywood are Los Angeles…spiritually like.
Like I (think I) said* before this is my attempt to put together a slapdash sociological spin on the question. No one who I ever met who lived in Santa Monica, even if they were born and raised there, self identified as anything other than an Angeleno. Same goes for several other municipalities such as West Hollywood, Glendale, and Burbank. Some people from Beverly Hill do, but they are mostly people you wouldn’t want to spend time with anyway, and the sane ones typically self identified as Angeleno’s too. Now clearly this isn’t scientific, but based on my gut as a local I am arguing that there are several unincorporated municipalities that, for the purposes of the way the OP was phrased, should be counted as being part of Los Angeles for these sociological reasons.
*but may have only implied[sup]1[/sup]
- Yes, I have been reading a lot of David Foster Wallace essays this week. Why do you ask?
It’s weird that I want the framed wall version of that map to hang up so I can look at it when I get homesick, isn’t it?
Not at all. It also would make a great reference map when the 11pm news leading crime story is aired. I’ve probably heard of each community at least once on the news, but couldn’t figure which part of LA they were talking about…(I live in the high desert, btw).
Vote for PEE-dro! 
I don’t even tend to take things literally, but if you ask me the population of any city, not just Los Angeles, my response is the population of the city. That’s it.
And I’ll be fucked before I call San Bernardino LA. The hell out of here with that noise. Might as well call LA everything south of Bakersfield. Sure, no one from Nowhere, USA has heard of Chino, but if they ask you where you’re from, just say SoCal, and if you absolutely need to be more specific, say near LA.
Having lived in San Bernardino (and Fontana), I definitely would not call that any part of LA either…but it (and Riverside) is the hub of the Inland Empire (bordered by the Cajon Pass to the North, San Gorgonio Pass to the East, Corona to the South, and the LA/SB county line to the West) is in it’s own right a metropolis of over 4 million people.
But now, living in the High Desert, everything south of the Cajon Pass is now considered “The Dead Zone”.
I’ve heard of China and I’m not even in the US! I’ve even been to Chino because I have friends there. They told me I was in LA. Bastards.
Yes, but Metrolink is a commuter rail system and doesn’t count. By “urban rail” I mean the Metro in L.A., or the Trolley system in San Diego. Surprisingly enough in a region known for dependence on private automobiles, you can conceivably ride from downtown L.A. downtown San Diego on commuter trains, by changing from L.A.'s to San Diego’s system at Oceanside.
On reconsidering what I said earlier, I think BART in SF would be another exception. We think of it as SF’s rapid transit system, and functions as such where it runs through the city, but it too is really more a commuter train system. Daly City and Oakland are not part of the City, but BART does go to those places.