Here's what I think I know, corrections and additions are appreciated:

1. The Valley and The San Fernando Valley are the same thing, even though the only place I've ever seen "San Fernando" is one of the major streets in Glendale
2. Downtown always refers to Downtown LA, recognizable by the tall buildings and the worst freeway interchanges I've ever seen. Also if you see "Wilshire Blvd. That's definitely downtown
3. The West Side is west of downtown. It definitely includes Santa Monica and Culver City, but it's unclear if it includes the many other places that are also in that direction
4. Hollywood is actually 4 places, even though it's one city, North, South, East, and West Hollywood respectively
5. Hollywoods can be abbreviated by taking the first two letters of the direction and adding "ho".
6. WeHo is the gay part.
7. Los Angeles is multiple cities, because for practical purposes, most people are talking about LA County
8. Los Angeles is one city, located somewhere in the middle of the idea of Los Angeles, with mysterious boundaries.
9. LADWP and other civil services cover everything the sun touches, except Glendale, we don't go there.
10. Freeways don't curve, and therefore terms like "West of the 5" means something, rather than being nonsense.
11. KoreaTown, Chinatown, and Little Tokyo are all in the actual city of Los Angeles, near downtown.
12. Pasadena is also its own city north of Los Angeles. It is an expensive neighborhood, and also not
13. I have never heard anyone say "East LA" or "East of LA"
14. The Valley is separated from The West Side by the 405 (The statistically worst freeway in America)
15. Sunland, Tujunga, and Sun Valley are all in "The Valley"
16. Burbank is next to "The Valley" but isn't in it.
17. No matter where you are, LAX is still somehow super far away

I grew up in Glendale, which I'm starting to gather is its entirely own microcosm. Now I live in Van Nuys, and I thought these terms would start to make sense organically eventually, but it's not happening, so I'm asking. What are all these terms that people are using all the time?

I'm trying to build an intuition about "near" and "far". But raw distance units don't tell the whole story. But I've noticed that anything within one of these groupings is "near" to each other. But crossing between them is "far". This is usually because of a mountain, terrible traffic, or both.

EDIT: I stated "I've never heard anyone say East LA" because I know my experience is limited. But I don't have any specific questions about it because these questions are about terms I've heard