San Gabriel occupies a historic corner of the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County, just east of downtown Los Angeles. Its roots are among the deepest in the region: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel was founded here in 1771 by Spanish missionaries, making the city a seedbed of settlement and culture in what became the Los Angeles basin. The mission remains a defining landmark and an anchor of the city's identity. Incorporated as a city in 1913, San Gabriel grew through the twentieth century as a residential community within the expanding Los Angeles metropolis. Its population of roughly 39,600 lives in established single-family neighborhoods that fill much of the city's compact footprint, with the historic Mission District at the center. The city is now perhaps best known for its food. San Gabriel sits at the heart of the San Gabriel Valley's celebrated Asian dining scene, and its commercial corridors and strip-mall plazas are filled with Cantonese, Sichuan, Vietnamese, and other regional restaurants that draw diners from across Southern California. That culinary reputation gives the city a distinct regional role and a lively commercial life. Day to day, San Gabriel is a settled, walkable-in-places suburban city with deep roots and strong transit and freeway connections. The Mission District, the mission itself, and the city's parks give residents a strong sense of place, while the broader San Gabriel Valley offers employment, dining, and recreation within easy reach. The result is a community that pairs more than two and a half centuries of continuous settlement with the everyday conveniences and diversity of a modern Los Angeles suburb.