Long Beach is a large coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of California. With a population of 449,468 people and 111 associated neighborhoods, Long Beach is the seventh largest community in California.

Housing costs in Long Beach are among some of the highest in the nation, although real estate prices here don't compare to real estate prices in the most expensive communities in California.

Of important note, Long Beach is also a city of artists. Long Beach has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Long Beach’s character.

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

Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 12.49% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

Long Beach is one of the most attractive larger cities for people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. This makes it a good place to live for young singles in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting their professional careers. Although Long Beach is a large city, this demographic is significant enough that young professionals will find many others like themselves here, with really good opportunities for friendships, recreation, romance, and more.

One of the nice things about Long Beach is that it is nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.

One downside of living in Long Beach is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Long Beach, the average commute to work is 30.92 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the city, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative.

Long Beach is a big city, and with that comes lots of benefits. One benefit is that most big cities have public transit, but Long Beach really shines when it comes to the extensiveness and use of its public transit system. More than most large American cities, Long Beach citizens use public transit daily to get to and from work. And while there are transportation options, most people in Long Beach ride the bus. Whereas in some cities one is destined to sit in traffic every morning to get to work and every evening to get home, in Long Beach a lot leave their cars at home (if they even choose to own one), and hop a ride on the bus.

The overall education level of Long Beach citizens is substantially higher than the typical US community, as 33.65% of adults in Long Beach have at least a bachelor's degree, and the average American community has 21.84%.

The per capita income in Long Beach in 2022 was $39,589, which is middle income relative to California, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $158,356 for a family of four. However, Long Beach contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Long Beach is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Long Beach home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Long Beach, accounting for 44.07% of the city’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Long Beach residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Long Beach include German, Irish, English, Italian, and French.

Long Beach also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 24.60%.

The most common language spoken in Long Beach is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Tagalog.