Inland Empire Community's
The Inland Empire is a region mainly located in the Riverside and San Bernardino counties of Southern California and generally encompasses the urbanized, western areas of those counties. The Inland Empire is centered in the region's oldest cities: Ontario, San Bernardino, and Riverside. These cities were established at about the end of the 19th century and were major centers of agriculture including citrus, dairy, and wine-making. The name "Inland Empire" was first used in the 1950s to distinguish the region from the coastal communities of the Greater Los Angeles Area, and Los Angeles itself.
The "Inland" part of the name is derived from the region's location about 37 miles (60 km) inland from the Pacific Ocean (from Huntington Beach) and east of downtown Los Angeles. The most accepted physical boundaries between Los Angeles and the Inland Empire from west to east are the San Jose Hills splitting the San Gabriel Valley from the Pomona Valley, leading to the urban populations centered in the San Bernardino Valley. Cities in southeastern Los Angeles County lying east of the hills, such as Pomona, Diamond Bar, La Verne, and Claremont, are often included because of their location in the Pomona Valley and proximity to the Riverside/San Bernardino county line. From the south to north, the Santa Ana Mountains physically divide Orange from San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. The Santa Rosa Mountains, as well as the Southern California portion of the Sonoran Desert, physically divides Riverside from San Diego county. Interconnectivity provided by one of the most comprehensive freeway systems in the United States has eroded any sense of physical boundaries between the Inland Empire and the Greater Los Angeles area.
Since the 1970s a rapidly growing population has led to more residential, commercial, and industrial development in this rural 'intermediate' area east of LA and Orange County, and north of San Diego County. With a population of over 4 million people,[2] the Inland Empire is the 14th largest metropolitan area in the United States.