The Palos Verdes Peninsula is a collection of four cities best known as just Palos Verdes, or PV. The four cities are:

• Palos Verdes Estates

• Rancho Palos Verdes

• Rolling Hills

• Rolling Hills Estates

While they each have their own unique characteristics they share the best coastal views in Los Angeles County and lush landscapes, rocks, mountains, cliffs and slopes.

"The Hill" is 30 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles, at the tail end of the 22-mile bike ride that extends from Pacific Palisades, just north of Santa Monica, down to the Redondo Beach area. Go up the hill, and you're in PV. It has a rural feel with huge amounts of tracts of land where you can go hiking, biking and surfing. Well not exactly rural because there are gorgeous ocean view mansions.

It's a peninsula, so you have the ocean on all three sides. Palos Verdes doesn't get the tourism love of Santa Monica, Venice or Malibu in Los Angeles promotions, but that's a good thing according to a lot of residents.

The big local sports are cycling – serious cyclers go up and down the hill, especially on weekends, and down on the bottom, in the water, surfing. This is huge in PV, especially in places like Bluff Cove and Lunada Bay. But be careful. Locals can get very territorial about outsiders joining their favorite surfing spot. For years, local police have been battling the "Bay Boys," a gang that discourages others from surfing in their beloved Lunada Bay spot of Palos Verdes Estates with violence and taunts.

Rancho Palos Verdes (also known by the abbreviation RPV) is a city in Los Angeles County, California atop the Palos Verdes Hills and bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. An affluent suburb of Los Angeles, it is known for large tracts of open space and expansive views of the Pacific Ocean. Rancho Palos Verdes is translated as "Ranch of Green Trees" or "Ranch of Sticks", probably referring to the willows in the northeastern part of Bixby Slough (now known as Machado Lake) shown on earlier maps.

The history of Rancho Palos Verdes dates back to the Tongva or Gabrielino Indians, who inhabited the site before the Age of Discovery. Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was credited as the first European to navigate the California Coast in 1542, which included the hills of Rancho Palos Verdes. Rancho de los Palos Verdes was established by a Mexican land grant given in 1846 by Governor Pio Pico to Jose Loreto and Juan Capistrano Sepulveda.

The city's most notable geographic features are the Palos Verdes Hills and cliffs, with grand vistas of the Pacific Ocean and of Santa Catalina Island. The city incorporated on September 7, 1973. The population was 41,643 at the 2010 census.

Palos Verdes Estates was established as a subdivision in 1923, with 3,200 acres carved out of the former Rancho Palos Verdes property of over 16,000 acres. Frank Vanderlip established both a land syndicate holding the Palos Verdes peninsula, and a real estate development trust for the Palos Verdes Estates subdivision. The Commonwealth Trust Company filed the Palos Verdes Protective Restrictions in Los Angeles County in 1923. These restrictions established rules for the developer and all land owners. The developer was required to set aside half of the land for common use, including roads and parks, but also built bridle paths, a golf course, and retained several miles of coastline free of development. No less than ninety percent of the remaining land was required to be used for single-family homes.

The designers of Palos Verdes Estates, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and Charles Cheney, used deed restrictions as a method of controlling development of the subdivision, even after many of the lots would have already been sold. The deed restrictions prohibited nuisance businesses, such as polluting industries, but also bars and cemeteries. None of the lots or homes could be sold to or rented by a non-white. An art jury reviewed all building plans, regulating any structure in regard to style, material, and even small details like color and the pitch of the roof. The construction of fences and hedges were subject to evaluation by the art jury.

At the time of the city's incorporation in 1939, the business and shop area around Malaga Cove had most of the Peninsula's earlier buildings. The Malaga Cove Plaza building of the Palos Verdes Public Library, designed by Pasadena architect Myron Hunt, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. Palos Verdes Estates was one of the earliest masterplanned communities in the United States. 

Rolling Hills Estates is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 8,067 at the 2010 census, up from 7,676 at the 2000 census. On the northern side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, facing Torrance, Rolling Hills Estates is mostly residential. Incorporated in 1957, Rolling Hills Estates tries to maintain a fairly bucolic character with a large number of horse paths. The history of Rolling Hills Estates actually dates back to the establishment of the first Spanish rancho land grant in California.