Learn more about Santa Monica California

Santa Monica, California is located in Los Angeles County, California–and is a beachfront city.  Positioned on the Bay of Santa Monica, the city of LA borders Los Angeles on three sides.  To the north is the Pacific Palisades, to the northeast is Brentwood, and Sawtelle is located east of Santa Monica, Mar Vista on the southeast, and Venice is to the south.  According to the most recent census, the population of Santa Monica was 89,739 in 2010.  If you need money in Santa Monica just click on the link and you’ll get more information.

In the earliest parts of the 20th century, Santa Monica became a famous resort town.  The city has boomed since the late 1980s because of a downtown revitalization.  Significant job growth has also increased, as has tourism.  The Santa Monica Pier is famous and is a tourist destination.

Santa Monica, California sits on a slope that trends downward towards Ocean Avenue and towards the south.  Santa Monica has a 3-mile coastline that borders the Santa Monica Bay.  If you continue eastward you will continue into West Los Angeles and Brentwood.

Santa Monica has a lot of large companies who have their headquarters located there.  Some of these include Lionsgate Films, the RAND Corporation, Beachbody, Hulu, the Universal Music Group, Macerich, Atlantic Aviation and the famous radio station KCRW.

Interestingly enough, Santa Monica has anumber of game development studios are based in Santa Monica, making it a major location for the industry. These include:

  • Blizzard
  • Treyarch
  • Cloud Imperium Games (Creators of Star Citizen)
  • SCE Studios Santa Monica
  • Studio Santa Monica (An in-house studio of SCE and creators of God of War)
  • Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends is just outside the eastern city limit.
  • Fatburger’s headquarters are also located in Santa Monica.  TOMS Shoes also is headquartered in Santa Monica.

There are several major companies that used to call Santa Monica home.  These include Geocities (an early internet company) MGM (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) and MySpace (which is now located in Beverly Hills).

Fundera ranked the Santa Monica as the 6th best city for small business in a study performed in 2016.  Santa Monica is known as “Silicon Beach” and hundreds of venture-capital funded startup companies are calling Santa Monica home.

Santa Monica has a mild climate with low rainfall and lots of sunshine.  It averages 310 days of sunshine a year. Because of its location close to Santa Monica Bay, morning fog is a common occurrence in May, June, and July. Generally, by the noon the gray skies are gone because the sun has burned off the fog.

September is the hottest month, however, in the winter the dry winds of the Santa Anas are the most common.  The rainy season in Santa Monica is from late October through late March.  Winter storms generally approach Santa Monica from the Northwest and pass through the Southland.  Other than the rainy season there is very little rain during the rest of the year.  Santa Monica experiences unpredictable rainfalls and generally has droughts.  Snow and frost are non-existent, however, Santa Monica has experienced hail.