West Los Angeles is a district in Los Angeles, California, within a larger region known as the "Westside." The district is bordered by Santa Monica on the west, Brentwood on the northwest, the unincorporated Sawtelle Veterans Administration grounds on the north, Westwood on the northeast, Rancho Park on the east and southeast, and Mar Vista on the south and southeast. Its generally accepted boundaries are the San Diego Freeway on the east, the Santa Monica Freeway on the south, the city limits of Santa Monica on the west, and Wilshire Boulevard on the north.

Its major thoroughfares are Olympic, Santa Monica, Pico, Wilshire, and Sawtelle Boulevards, Barrington and Bundy Drive. Because the Big Blue Bus (Santa Monica's municipal bus network) uses UCLA as one of its terminals, it provides good public transit within the region, especially along east-west routes, as does the LACMTA to a lesser extent. However, public transit from West Los Angeles to other, more distant districts within L.A. is poor.

This district contains an area of Japanese-American culture along Sawtelle Boulevard which is sometimes called Sawtelle. As with most parts of the Westside, West Los Angeles is an affluent neighborhood. Its central location has made it a locus of commercial development, with several high-rise office buildings along Olympic, Santa Monica, and Wilshire Boulevards. It also contains a large number of Japanese-owned businesses. A satellite congregation of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, one of the most prominent Reform Jewish congregations in Southern California, occupies the northeast corner of Olympic and Barrington.

Housing in West Los Angeles is a mixture of low-rise apartment buildings, mostly inhabited by young professionals and working-class families, and single-story tract house developments built between late 1920 and 1960. Two of Los Angeles's tallest residential towers are at the neighborhood's northern edge, at the intersection of Wilshire and Barrington. There is a trend toward greater density, as single-family houses get replaced by apartment buildings, or apartment buildings by taller ones, as building sites become available through demolition.

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