Hi Grace and welcome to California! I am an ABC and grew up in Los Angeles County so I can definitely help you out with that info.
Los Angeles County actually has a few “Chinatowns”. The oldest is in the city of Los Angeles which is probably not a place you would want to live now because it is pretty run down and urban—not a place to raise a family or look for a high quality of life. It is mostly a commercial/industrial area and tourist attraction.
The newer Chinatown is in the San Gabriel Valley. For Los Angeles, this region has the highest percentage of Chinese/Asians and is widely known as a destination for many immigrants from Asia. This area is moderately urban mixing older residential communties with retail amenties. Chinese populated cities which comprise the San Gabriel Valley are:
Monterey Park (many consider this the most Chinese)
Alhambra
San Gabriel
Rosemead
Temple City
Arcadia (the second most desirable to live for Chinese in this area)
San Marino (arguably the most desirable city to live for Chinese in this area)
South Pasadena
Pasadena
Another Chinese/Asian settlement is in an area further east and south of the San Gabriel Valley. (Some people may consider this also part of the San Gabriel Valley, but it is about 17 miles away.)
The cities which comprise this area are:
Rowland Heights (has the most amount of Chinese stores, restaurants in this area and many Chinese live here in the newer development gated communities in the hills)
Hacienda Heights
Diamond Bar
Walnut
Phillips Ranch
Chino Hills
There are also some more Chinese scattered around in smaller communities in cities such as:
Covina
West Covina (notably the South Hills community)
Orange County also has a prevalent and affluent Chinese community in the city of Irvine. More recently, it has become a very desirable area for Chinese to move to and it has been known that wealthy immigrants from China have been paying cash in full for the expensive homes there. It is a newer development, master-planned community consisting of tract homes and has very good schools.
You can look up zip codes by city name by visiting this website:
Zip Express - Lookup Zip Codes by City
It's very easy to use-- just enter in the city name and select the state.
For information about population percentages of Chinese in a city, you can use
Wikipedia.org and look up the name of the city. It will give you more information about that particular city and should also give you population statistics. Note: It may not show you the % of just Chinese, but rather show you the % for all Asians.
The U.S. Census Bureau probably has all that information, but if you haven't been able to easily find it on their site, you may have to place an order for that data from them.
I hope that helps you and please private message me if you have more questions. I'd be happy to help!
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
What are the zip codes where Chinese neighborhoods are in Southern CA?
just kidding not!
Linear Mode
