Brief
History:
Orange County is
located in the Los Angeles metropolitan
area in Southern California. As of the
2010 census, the population
was 3,010,232, making it the
third-most populous county in California,
the sixth most populous in the U.S., and
more
populous than 21 U.S. states.
Although mostly suburban, it is the second
most densely populated county in the
state, behind
San Francisco County. The county's
three most populous cities are Anaheim,
Santa Ana, and Irvine, each of which has a
population exceeding 300,000. Santa
Ana is also the county seat. Six cities in
Orange County are on the Pacific coast,
including Seal Beach, Huntington
Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana
Point, and San Clemente.
Members of the Tongva, Juaneño, and
Luiseño Native American groups long
inhabited the area. After the 1769
expedition of
Gaspar de Portolà, a Spanish
expedition led by Junipero Serra named the
area Valle de Santa Ana (Valley of Saint
Anne). On
November 1, 1776, Mission San Juan
Capistrano became the area's first
permanent European settlement. Among those
who
came with Portolá were José Manuel
Nieto and José Antonio Yorba. Both these
men were given land grants—Rancho Los
Nietos and Rancho Santiago de Santa
Ana, respectively. The Nieto heirs were
granted land in 1834. The Nieto ranches
were
known as Rancho Los Alamitos, Rancho
Las Bolsas, and Rancho Los Coyotes. Yorba
heirs Bernardo Yorba and Teodosio
Yorba were also granted Rancho Cañón
de Santa Ana (Santa Ana Canyon Ranch) and
Rancho Lomas de Santiago,
respectively. Other ranchos in
Orange County were granted by the Mexican
government during the Mexican period in
Alta
California.
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