Orange, California

About Orange, California

The City of Orange is located in Orange County, California, United States. It is approximately 3 miles (6 kilometers) north of the county seat, Santa Ana. Orange is unusual in that many of the homes in its Old Town District were built prior to 1920; whereas many other cities in the region demolished such houses in the 1960s, Orange decided to preserve them.

Members of the Tongva and Juaneño/Luiseño nations long inhabited this area. After the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portolà, an expedition out of San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico, led by Father Junípero Serra, named the area Vallejo de Santa Ana (Valley of Saint Anne). On November 1, 1776, Mission San Juan Capistrano became the area's first permanent European settlement in Alta California, New Spain.

In 1801, the Spanish Empire granted 62,500 acres (253 km²) to Jose Antonio Yorba, which he named Rancho San Antonio. Yorba's great rancho included the lands where the cities of Olive, Orange, Villa Park, Santa Ana, Tustin, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach stand today. Smaller ranchos evolved from this large rancho, including the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana.