Yaanga was a large Tongva (or Kizh) village, originally located near what is now downtown Los Angeles, just west of the Los Angeles River and beneath U.S. Route 101. People from the village were recorded as Yabit in missionary records although they were known as Yaangavit, Yavitam, or Yavitem among the people. It is unclear what the exact population of Yaanga was prior to colonization, although it was recorded as the largest and most influential village in the region.

Yaangavit were treated as slave laborers during the Mission period by Franciscan padres to construct and work at San Gabriel Mission and Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles Asistencia and forced laborers for the Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers to construct and expand Los Angeles. The colonizers' dependency on Yaanga for forced labor is thought to be a reason for its ability to survive longer than most Indigenous villages in the region. However, after the founding of Pueblo de Los Ángeles in 1781, Yaanga increasingly "began to look more like a refugee camp than a traditional community," and following relentless pressure on the inhabitants to assimilate, the community was eventually dispersed.

The original village seems to have only remained intact until about 1813. After being forcibly relocated several times, eventually eastward across the Los Angeles River, it was razed to the ground by the Los Angeles City Council under American occupation in 1847. Buried intact deposits from Yaanga have been found throughout downtown Los Angeles, such as in the vicinity of Alameda Street, Bella Union Hotel, Union Station, Plaza Church, and the Metropolitan Water District Headquarters.

Yaanga (alternative spellings: Yangna or iyáangaʼ, written as "Yang-Na" in Spanish), was described in contemporary sources as being a Tongva word meaning "place of the poison oak."

The original exact site of Yaanga is unclear because the village was evicted, forcibly relocated, destroyed and is now covered by downtown Los Angeles. However, it is known to have existed near downtown Los Angeles, just west of the Los Angeles River, and beneath U.S. Route 101. One article located the original village site of Yaanga "about 1.4 miles southwest of the current N. Broadway Street at the Los Angeles River [and] in the neighborhood of Los Angeles Street between the current Plaza south towards Temple Street... [which] would have placed the village in close proximity to the pueblo’s earliest plaza and church. The [Los Angeles] pueblo was established immediately adjacent to Yaanga in 1781 in the area north of the current Los Angeles Plaza Church."

Some historians position Yaanga as located slightly south of Los Angeles Plaza (Los Angeles Plaza Park), near or underneath where the Bella Union Hotel was located (now Fletcher Bowron Square). One historian concludes that "it is highly unlikely that Yaanga would have been located east of the present course of Alameda Street (i.e. beneath Union Station) because these areas would have periodically scoured during flood stages of the Los Angeles River, and higher, drier ground could be found farther west."

Several records within the English translations of the early era ayuntamiento or village council held relate that the council formally apportioned a triangular site for use by the Yaanga natives for their village, as well as subsequent attempts by Juan Domingo against this village. The former record indicates that the triangular site apparently was a portion of the Second Settlement Plaza which possibly had been cut through by the historic flood of 1815. The date upon which the site was dedicated for use by Tongva natives is not given in the council translations, but the apportionment took place within fifteen years following the 1825 flood. More than one history of Los Angeles makes claims that in the westward shift of the river in the flood of 1815, the river destroyed both the Natives' village as well as the recently established second pueblo settlement, including the pueblo chapel. The plaza of the second pueblo settlement was located on the north side of Aliso Street a short distance west of El AliSo, the aged totem/signal tree of the Tongva Nation. The river continued to flow westward to Ballona Flats for a ten-year period which lasted until the great flood of spring 1825. The river shifted eastward and cut against the hillside beyond/above which Boyle Heights eventually was settled. The now-empty riverbed of the ten year interregnum was utilized to form a northern passage by which the citizens could easily ford the river north of the juncture of the creek which still combines the drainages of Arroyo de Los Posas and Canada de Los Abilas within the broad valley north of present Boyle Heights.

The triangular site of 'Yaanga' was the remainder of the southeast portion of the plaza of the second settlement. The juncture of the original Aliso Street with the new route to the northeast, which followed the empty riverbed, was at the second settlement plaza. The reason why pueblo inhabitants abandoned the first settlement site to the northwest may have been due to destruction and fear resulting from two great earthquakes that occurred ten days apart in December 1812. The third (present) site of the Los Angeles Pueblo was then arrived at following the flood of 1815.