Athens is a predominantly black, heavily Hispanic, relatively prosperous unincorporated community in the South Los Angeles region of Los Angeles County, California, numbering 9,101 people in the 2000 census. It is the site of Los Angeles Southwest College.GeographyAthens is south of unincorporated Westmont, east of Hawthorne, north of Gardena, and west of the Broadway-Manchester neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles. It is bounded on the north by Imperial Highway, on the east by Vermont Avenue, on the south by El Segundo Boulevard and the Gardena city line and on the west by South Van Ness Avenue, South Wilton Place and the Hawthorne city boundary. It is bisected by the Interstate 105 Century Freeway.The ZIP code is 90044; the community is inside telephone area code 323 and area code 310. It lies at an elevation of 171 feet (52 m).PopulationIn the 2000 census, there were 9,101 people in Athens' 1.33 square miles, which put its population density at 6,829 per square mile, "among the lowest densities for South L.A.," according to the Los Angeles Times. The ethnic distribution was black, 54.3%; Latino, 39.78%; Asian, 2.9%; white, 1.2%, and other, 2%. Twenty-eight percent of the residents were foreign born, average for both South Los Angeles and for the county as a whole. Mexican and Belizean were the most common ancestries, and Mexico and El Salvador were the most common foreign places of birth.
