Pomona (/pəˈmoʊnə/ ⓘ pə-MOH-nə[8]) is a city in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States.

[11] For horticulturist Solomon Gates, "Pomona" was the winning entry in a contest to name the city in 1875, before anyone had ever planted a fruit tree there.

[12] The city was first settled by Ricardo Véjar and Ygnacio Palomares in the 1830s when California and much of the now-American Southwest were part of Mexico.

The first Anglo-Americans arrived prior to 1848 when the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo resulted in California becoming part of the United States.

[2] In 1864, the widow of Ygnacio Palomares of Rancho San José sold 12,000 acres (49,000,000 m2; 49 km2) to Louis Phillips, a Jewish Prussian immigrant, who would shortly be known as "the richest man in Los Angeles County."

He built the largest commercial building in Los Angeles central business district at the time, the Phillips Block, which would eventually house Hamburger's, the then-largest department store in the Western United States.

Phillips sold a parcel of his land to William "Uncle Billy" Rubottom, in 1866 who founded a new town there and named it Spadra after his hometown, now part of Clarksville, Arkansas.

[13][14] By the 1880s, the arrival of Coachella Valley water, together with railroad access, made it the western anchor of the citrus-growing region.

[2] In the 1920s Pomona was known as the "Queen of the Citrus Belt", with one of the highest per-capita levels of income in the United States.

In the 1940s it was used as a movie-previewing location for major motion picture studios to see how their films would play to modally middle-class audiences around the country (for which Pomona was at that time viewed as an idealized example).

[20] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 22.964 square miles (59.48 km2), over 99% of it land.

Pomona is bordered by the cities of San Dimas on the northwest, La Verne and Claremont on the north, Montclair and Chino on the east, Chino Hills and Diamond Bar on the south, Walnut, South San Jose Hills, and Industry on the southwest, and the unincorporated community of Ramona on the west.

Fall brings cooler temperatures and occasional showers, as well as seasonal Santa Ana winds originating from the northeast.

Pomona first appeared as a city in the 1890 U.S. Census,[26] the first incorporated place in the now defunct San Jose township (pop 1,170 in 1880).

[49] Since the 1980s, Pomona's newest neighborhood Phillips Ranch, experienced rapid growth with homes still being built in the hilly area between Downtown and Diamond Bar.

The city is the site of the Fairplex, which hosts the L.A. County Fair and the Pomona Swap Meet & Classic Car Show.

[51] In the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Pomona is in the 1st District, represented by Democrat Hilda Solis.

There are also a wide variety of smaller regional newspapers, alternative weeklies and magazines, including: Pomona is connected to downtown Los Angeles and to downtown Riverside via Metrolink and is connected by Amtrak via the Sunset Limited and the Texas Eagle.

[71][72] Foothill Transit's Silver Streak operates express service eastbound to Montclair, and westbound to Downtown Los Angeles.