The Los Angeles-Orange County region leads the nation in business startups, according to a report released Wednesday from the Economic Innovation Group.

Between 2010 and 2014, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area generated an annual average of 21,870 business startups, by far the largest number of any metropolitan region in the nation, according to the report from the Washington D.C. think tank.

That was offset by an annual average of 19,430 firm deaths, yielding a net positive birth over death margin of 2,440. That placed the Los Angeles-Anaheim region at No. 20 for the margin of business startups over business failures.

“Los Angeles has one of the strongest dynamism rates in the nation as more startups are forming than businesses are closing,” Joe Sanberg, co-founder of Aspiration.com and member of the founders circle of Economic Innovation Group, said in an email.

Nationally, though, the picture was not as bright for business startups. The report found that an average 400,000 businesses launched nationwide a year between 2010 and 2014, barely above the 388,000 business a year that shut down. More significantly, only a few metropolitan areas registered a positive ratio of business formation over business failures; most other areas in the nation saw more businesses fail than launch.

“After years of uneven recovery, while some places are thriving, millions of Americans have yet to see economic growth return to their communities,” Sean Parker, president of the Parker Foundation and chairman of the Economic Innovation Group, said in a statement.

Public policy and energy reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @howardafine.