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: 14.39% 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.

Long Beach is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery.

In Long Beach, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 30.75 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.

The education level of Long Beach citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (21.84%): 34.84% of adults in Long Beach have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Long Beach in 2022 was $42,370, 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 $169,480 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 43.42% 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 Polish.

Foreign born people are also an important part of Long Beach's cultural character, accounting for 24.69% of the city’s population.

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