Whittier is a city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, about twelve miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles and near the boundary with Orange County. With a population of roughly 87,000, it is one of the larger cities in the Gateway Cities region and one of the most historically distinctive. Whittier was founded by Quaker settlers and incorporated in 1898, and it took its name from John Greenleaf Whittier, the nineteenth-century Quaker poet and abolitionist. That founding spirit shaped the city's institutions, most notably Whittier College, a liberal arts college chartered in 1901 and located near the center of town. The city's heart is Uptown Whittier, a historic commercial district centered on Greenleaf Avenue and Philadelphia Street, where a walkable collection of restaurants, shops, and small businesses gives the city a small-town main-street feel unusual for Los Angeles County. Around it sit several designated historic districts—Central Park, Hadley-Greenleaf, Earlham, and College Hills—that preserve early twentieth-century Craftsman and period architecture, along with hillside neighborhoods such as Starlite Estates above the city. The Whittier Greenway Trail, built on a former railroad corridor, threads through the community and connects to the trails of Turnbull Canyon and the Puente Hills Preserve. Whittier is served by several public school systems, including the Whittier City School District for elementary and middle grades and the Whittier Union High School District for secondary students, with the East Whittier City and South Whittier districts serving adjacent portions of the community. Transportation access is strong, with the 5, 60, and 605 freeways nearby and Metrolink commuter rail available at the Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs station. Whittier suits residents who want a historically rich, community-oriented city with a genuine downtown, hillside recreation, and convenient access to both Los Angeles and Orange County.