Torrance is a city located in the southwestern or "South Bay" region of Los Angeles County, California.
Torrance is located at (33.834815, -118.341330)
As of the 2000 census, the city population was 137,946; in 2005 the population was estimated to be 142,384. Torrance is the sixth largest city in Los Angeles County and the 34th largest in the state of California.
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 new planned community. The resulting town was founded in October 1912 and named after Torrance; the city of Torrance was formally incorporated in May 1921.
Torrance has a busy general aviation airport, originally named simply "Torrance Airport" and since renamed Zamperini Field after local track star, World War II hero and Torrance High graduate Louis Zamperini. The airport handles approximately 175,000 annual take-offs and landings (473 per day [4]), down from the 1974 record of 428,000 operations. Airport noise abatement is a major local issue.
Torrance is home to the U.S. headquarters of two of the three largest Japanese auto makers, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. and American Honda Motor Company. California's aerospace industry began in Torrance and surrounding communities.
Torrance is also home to the main bakery facility for King's Hawaiian, the dominant brand of Hawaiian bread in North America.
Torrance is one of the few American cities that approaches the ideal balance between the three major types of zones. This explains its slogan: "A Balanced City, Industrial, Residential, Commercial."[Torrance however was not designed originally to be a balanced city: In the past it was known as "Headquarters City, Industry, Finance, Business." In recent years, major re-zoning of old industrial areas to residential has caused an enormous population growth and all the caveats that come with it, including heavy traffic congestion.
Because of the large Japanese commercial and industrial presence in Torrance, the city has one of the highest concentrations of Japanese expatriates and Japanese-Americans living in the United States. Among Los Angeles citizens, Torrance is known for its large Asian American population.