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The San Fernando Valley (known as The Valley, Valle or SFV) is an urbanized valley located in Los Angeles county. More than half of the city of Los Angeles' land area lies within the San Fernando Valley. Three of the region's television network affiliates are based in the valley, KNBC, in Burbank, KCBS (with sister station KCAL), in Studio City and KABC in Glendale.
Geography
 The San Fernando Valley is about 260 square miles bounded by the Santa Susana Mountains to the northwest, the Simi Hills to the west, the Santa Monica Mountains to the south, the Verdugo Mountains to the east, and the San Gabriel Mountains to the northeast. The Los Angeles River begins at the confluence of Calabasas and Bell Canyon creeks behind Canoga Park High School in Canoga Park and flows east along the southern areas of the Valley. One of the river's only unpaved sections can be found at the Sepulveda Basin. Another waterway, the Tujunga Wash, drains much of the western San Gabriel Mountains and, after passing through the Hansen Dam Recreation Center, winds south through the eastern communities of the Valley before merging with the Los Angeles River in Studio City. Other tributaries of the River include Caballero Creek, Bull Creek, Pacoima Wash, and Verdugo Wash. The elevation of the floor of the valley varies between about 600 and 1,200 ft. above sea level.
Most of the San Fernando Valley is within the jurisdictional boundaries of the city of Los Angeles, although several other independent cities are located within the Valley as well; Burbank and Glendale are in the southeast corner of the Valley, Hidden Hills and Calabasas are in the southwest corner, and San Fernando, which is completely surrounded by Los Angeles, is in the northeast valley. Universal City, an enclave in the southern part of the Valley, is unincorporated land housing the Universal Studios filming lot. Mulholland Drive, which runs along the ridgeline of the Santa Monica Mountains, marks the boundary between the Valley and the communities of Hollywood and Los Angeles' westside.
Los Angeles' administrative center for the valley is in Van Nuys. The area in and around the Van Nuys branch of Los Angeles City Hall is home to a police station, municipal and superior courts and Los Angeles city and county administrative offices. Northridge is home to California State University Northridge (originally named San Fernando Valley State College).
Demographics
According to the 2008 San Fernando Valley Census Report the population of the San Fernando Valley is 1.76 million, as of 2007. Of the population 43.4% were Non-Hispanic White, 40.8% were Hispanic or Latino, 3.4% were African Americans and 10.1% were Asian. The largest cities located entirely in the valley are Glendale and Burbank. The most populous districts of Los Angeles in the valley are North Hollywood and Van Nuys. Each of the two cities and the two districts named has more than 100,000 residents. Despite the San Fernando Valley's reputation for sprawling, low-density development, the valley communities of Panorama City, North Hollywood, Van Nuys, Reseda, Canoga Park, and Northridge, all in Los Angeles, have numerous apartment complexes and contain some of the densest census tracts in Los Angeles.
Economy
The Valley is home to numerous companies, the most well-known of which are involved in motion pictures, recording, and television production, including CBS Studio Center, NBC-Universal, The Walt Disney Company (and its ABC television network), and Warner Bros. The Valley was previously known for stellar advances in aerospace technology by companies such as Lockheed, Rocketdyne, and Marquardt.
The Valley became the pioneering region for producing adult films in the 1970s and since then has been home to a multi-billion dollar pornography industry.
Transportation
Although most of the valley is part of Los Angeles, its development pattern is almost exclusively suburban, and the automobile is the dominant mode of transportation. Several freeways criss-cross the Valley, most notably, Interstate 405, U.S. Route 101, State Route 118, and Interstate 5. Most of the major thoroughfares run on a cartographic grid; notable streets include Sepulveda Boulevard, Ventura Boulevard, Laurel Canyon Boulevard, San Fernando Road, Victory Boulevard, Reseda Boulevard, Riverside Drive, Mulholland Drive, and State Route 27 (Topanga Canyon Boulevard).
Despite the dominance of the automobile, the valley has two Metro subway stations, in Universal City and North Hollywood, which opened in 2000 as an extension of the Metro Red Line Subway connecting the Valley to Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles. The Orange Line, an east-west Bus Rapid Transit bus-way was opened in October 2005, connecting the North Hollywood Metro station to Warner Center in the west Valley. The new line features "train-like" articulated buses and very high frequency of service. Long-promised daily bus service between Sylmar and Santa Clarita began operating in 2006. Two Metrolink commuter rail lines connect the Valley to downtown Los Angeles, merging into one at Burbank. These operate on a limited schedule serving commuters only during regular work hours. Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner has stations at Burban Airport, Van Nuys and Chatsworth. Six Metro Rapid bus rapid transit lines (734, 741, 750, 761, 780, and 794) serve the area, with more planned. Metro service is planned and operated by the San Fernando Valley Sector under policies and oversight of its Governance Council.
The California High Speed Rail will have two stations in the valley, one in downtown Burbank and one in Sylmar when it opens its initial segment in 2020.
Parks and recreation
The San Fernando Valley is home to several large and many small parks. Griffith Park, the largest of Los Angeles' municipal parks, lies at the southeastern end of the valley, straddling the eastern end of the Hollywood Hills. Two large recreation areas occupy the flood control basins behind Sepulveda Dam and Hansen Dam. O'Melveny Park above Granada Hills protects the upper reaches of Bee Canyon, at the eastern end of the Santa Susana Mountains. There is also a sizeable recreation area in the northwest valley, Chatsworth Park.
In the past decade, many large tracts of undeveloped or ranch lands in the mountains surrounding the Valley have been acquired for parkland. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and its affiliated agencies have purchased or otherwise acquired many of these lands, which are maintained as parkland by the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, California state parks, or local parks districts. In 2003 the Ahmanson Ranch, a 2,983 acre property in Ventura County at the west end of the valley, was purchased by the State of California, and dedicated as the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve on April 10, 2004.
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