Rancho Palos Verdes is a medium-sized coastal city (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of California. With a population of 41,301 people and six constituent neighborhoods, Rancho Palos Verdes is the 189th largest community in California.

Rancho Palos Verdes is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 91.87% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Rancho Palos Verdes is a city of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Rancho Palos Verdes who work in management occupations (21.48%), sales jobs (13.33%), and office and administrative support jobs (10.62%).

Also of interest is that Rancho Palos Verdes has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

In addition, Rancho Palos Verdes is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates." Urban sophisticates are people who are both educated and wealthy, and thus tend to be older, richer, and more established than young professionals. "Urban sophisticates" is not just about being educated and well-off financially: it is a point of view and state of mind, one that you might call 'urbaneness.' But such people can and do regularly live in small towns, suburbs and rural areas, as well as in big cities. They read, support the arts and high-end shops, and love travel.

Because of many things, Rancho Palos Verdes is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Rancho Palos Verdes really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Rancho Palos Verdes perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic night life, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

One of the nice things about Rancho Palos Verdes is that is it nautical, meaning that parts of the city are somewhat historic and on the ocean, or touch tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.

In Rancho Palos Verdes, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 33.14 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.

"If you live in Rancho Palos Verdes, you are going to have to drive to get to work," say area residents. At least that is what most Rancho Palos Verdes residents do (97.7%). Rancho Palos Verdes is primarily built for cars, and driving around town will bare this out. Shopping centers, parking lots, strip malls, and wide streets are what you'll find. Sidewalks? Sure. But not everywhere, and walking to most places can be downright scary.

The city of Rancho Palos Verdes is a decent size, but despite this, it doesn't have a viable public transit system that people can use to get to work.

Rancho Palos Verdes Information and Demographics

If knowledge is power, Rancho Palos Verdes is a pretty powerful place. 57.99% of the adults in Rancho Palos Verdes have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 14.96% for all cities and towns.

The per capita income in Rancho Palos Verdes in 2000 was $46,250, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $185,000 for a family of four. However, Rancho Palos Verdes contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Rancho Palos Verdes is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Rancho Palos Verdes home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Rancho Palos Verdes is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Rancho Palos Verdes include English, German, Irish, Italian, and Iranian.

Foreign born people are also an important part of Rancho Palos Verdes's cultural character, accounting for 26.84% of the city's population.

The languages spoken by people in Rancho Palos Verdes are also diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in Rancho Palos Verdes is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and Persian.