Torrance is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States, founded in 1912, neighboring Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills Estates, Palos Verdes Estates, Lomita, Gardena, Lawndale, and Alondra Park, as well as the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Harbor City and Harbor Gateway. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay region.
Torrance has a moderate year-round climate with average rainfall of per year. Torrance has of beachfront abutting Santa Monica Bay and 30 parks. It is the birthplace of the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO). The population was 147,067 at the 2020 census, decreasing by 5.1% to an estimated 139,576 in 2024. It was later divided in 1846, with Governor Pío Pico granting Rancho de los Palos Verdes to José Loreto and Juan Capistrano Sepúlveda in the Alta California territory of independent Mexico.
Modern Era
In the early 1900s, real estate developer Jared Sidney Torrance and other investors saw the value of creating a mixed industrial–residential community south of Los Angeles. They purchased part of an old Spanish land grant and hired landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to design a planned community. The resulting town was founded in October 1912 and named after Torrance. The city of Torrance was formally incorporated in May 1921, the townsite initially being bounded by Western Avenue on the east, Del Amo Boulevard on the north, Crenshaw Boulevard on the west, and on the south both by Plaza del Amo east of where it meets Carson Street, and by Carson Street west of where it meets Plaza del Amo.
The first residential avenue created in Torrance was Gramercy and the second avenue was Andreo. Many of the houses on these avenues reached the centennial mark in 2012. Both avenues are located in the area referred to as Old Torrance. This section of Torrance is under review to be classified as a historical district. Some of the early civic and residential buildings were designed by the renowned and innovative Southern California architect Irving Gill, in his distinctive combining of Mission Revival and early Modernist architecture.
Historic Olmsted District
Torrance was planned as a new prototype of a balanced industrial city based on the principles of the Garden City Movement. The original tract developed by the Olmsted Brothers consists of 109 city blocks divided into three sub-districts: residential, commercial, and industrial. The plan is most notable for its axial landscaped downtown commercial neighborhood aligned to have a view of Mount San Antonio in the San Gabriel Mountains. The Olmsted Tract includes a number of buildings designed by the noted Southern California Architect Irving Gill, including the original train depot.
The footprint of the downtown neighborhood, now called Old Torrance, was designed on a diagonal to allow the trade breezes coming from the Pacific Ocean to keep the air clean from industrial pollution for the residential and commercial neighborhoods. The industrial sections of the city were placed on the eastern side of the original tract.
Public transportation played a key role in the founding of Torrance. The Pacific Electric Red Car connected downtown Los Angeles to the new development of downtown Torrance. Designed in 1912 by Irving Gill, the terminus depot of the Red Car line was designed in a Spanish revival style popularized during this era. In May 1913, the Pacific Electric Railroad Bridge was built. Often called the "El Prado Bridge", it further expanded the industrial heart of the South Bay. The concrete double-tracked arch bridge was the Pacific Electric Railway's first interurban line that connected north–south to San Pedro via the Gardena Line. The bridge was used for transporting freight and commuting workers to Torrance factories. The Red Car line connected under the bridge as it connected to the train depot located on Cabrillo Avenue. The bridge no longer carries any rail cars, with Pacific Electric closing the Red Car line to Torrance in the 1940s. The bridge became the city of Torrance's second entry in the National Register of Historic Places on July 13, 1989, and is used as a logo for the city's new wayfinding signage and city materials.
thumb|The Pacific Railroad Bridge, often called the El Prado Bridge, was designed by famed architect Irving Gill. The bridge stands as an icon for the city of Torrance.|217x217px
Geography
thumb|left|180px|Torrance Beach lies between the [[Palos Verdes Peninsula and Redondo Beach on the Santa Monica Bay.]]
Torrance is a coastal community in southwestern Los Angeles County sharing the climate and geographical features common to the Greater Los Angeles area. Its boundaries are: Redondo Beach Boulevard and the cities of Lawndale and Gardena to the north; Western Avenue and the Harbor Gateway neighborhood of Los Angeles to the east; the Palos Verdes Hills with the cities of Lomita, Rolling Hills Estates and Palos Verdes Estates on the south; and the Pacific Ocean and the city of Redondo Beach to the west.
The western portion of Torrance is in ZIP Code 90277, which is a city of Redondo Beach postal address. It is about southwest of Downtown Los Angeles.
Torrance Beach lies between Redondo Beach and Malaga Cove on Santa Monica Bay. The southernmost stretch of Torrance Beach, on a cove at the northern end of the Palos Verdes peninsula, is known to locals as Rat Beach (Right After Torrance).
An urban wetland, the Madrona Marsh is a nature preserve on land once set for oil production and saved from development, with restoration projects enhancing the vital habitat for birds, wildlife, and native plants.
Climate
Torrance has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csb), bordering with a semi-arid climate (Bsk). The rainy season is November through March, as shown in the adjacent table. Summers tend to be warm but dry, despite Torrance's proximity to the coast. The Sunset Western Garden Book places most of Torrance in Zone 22, part of a basin area in Greater Los Angeles where cold air can pool—hence the surprisingly chilly record low temperatures for each calendar month at the airport, which has risk of frost over six months. Milder microclimates are found upslope of the airport to the south (Zone 23—thermal belt) and in the western blocks bordering the beach communities and Palos Verdes Estates (Zone 24—marine influence dominant).