Getting to Know Rowland Heights
How Rowland Heights Sits
Rowland Heights is an unincorporated community in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, about twenty-five miles east of downtown Los Angeles. It covers roughly thirteen square miles, which makes it the largest census-designated place in Los Angeles County by area, and it held about 48,000 people at the 2020 census. It sits in and below the Puente Hills, with State Route 60, the Pomona Freeway, running along its north side. Because it is unincorporated, it is governed by Los Angeles County rather than its own city government.
The community has two faces. The hillside neighborhoods, including tracts like Vantage Pointe and Rancho El Dorado, hold larger view homes on winding streets. The flatter ground near the freeway holds townhomes, condos, and apartments. Down the middle run Colima Road and Nogales Street, the commercial spine, lined with Asian restaurants, bakeries, tea shops, markets, and plazas such as the Puente Hills Town Center. About six in ten residents are of Asian descent, and the area has long been a center of the Taiwanese and Chinese communities in the valley.
Rowland Heights borders Hacienda Heights to the west, Walnut to the north and east, and Diamond Bar to the east. The City of Industry sits just north, home to large employers like Newegg, FedEx, and DIRECTV, where many residents work. Schools are run by the Rowland Unified School District, and Schabarum Regional Park spreads across the hills on the community’s western edge. The result is a large, hilly, family-centered community that is both a place to live and a regional destination to eat and shop.
From Rancho La Puente to Little Taipei
The land was home to the Tongva people, and under Mexican rule it became part of Rancho La Puente. Governor Juan B. Alvarado granted the rancho to John Rowland in 1842, and it later grew to nearly 49,000 acres with William Workman added as co-owner. Rowland had helped lead the Workman-Rowland Party of 1841, the first organized group of American settlers to travel overland to California.
In 1868 Rowland and Workman divided the rancho. Rowland took the northern, southern, and eastern sections, including most of what is now Rowland Heights, and the community carries his name. For decades the land stayed rural, first as ranches and then as orange groves, and it was once known as North Whittier Heights.
Suburban growth reached the hills after the Second World War, and the area filled in through the following decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, a wave of immigration from Taiwan and elsewhere in East Asia transformed it, bringing the restaurants, markets, and plazas that line Colima Road and Nogales Street today. The orange groves gave way to the hillside neighborhoods and the busy commercial corridors of the present community.
What a Rowland Heights Move Really Involves
Rowland Heights is hilly and unincorporated, so most moves here turn on terrain and county access rather than a city permit. The first thing we settle is where the truck can sit and how the items reach it. On the hillside, that means steep, winding driveways and long carries from the curb. On the flatter blocks it means townhomes and condos with stairs or a shared elevator. On the commercial corridors it means tight parking in busy plazas. We confirm the access before move day.
The home is the next factor. A hillside view home may sit well above or below the street, with a long path to the door. A townhome has a tight stairwell and a shared entrance to protect. A condo with an elevator needs it reserved so the move does not stall. We check the grade, the driveway, the stairs or elevator, and the carry distance ahead of time, and bring the protection and the crew size to match.
The third factor is jurisdiction. Because Rowland Heights is unincorporated, there is no city hall for parking or street matters. Access runs through Los Angeles County and, on the hillside tracts, through the homeowners associations. We arrange the parking and any HOA certificate of insurance in advance, and bring door, railing, and floor protection as standard. With the terrain, the access, and the handling settled before move day, the crew keeps moving once it arrives.