Orange, California Population 2024

Orange is located in Orange County, California roughly 3 miles north of Santa Ana, the county seat, and 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Orange is somewhat unique for the region, due to a large number of the homes in its Old Town District having been built prior to 1920. Many neighboring cities in the region decided to demolish such houses in the 1960s, yet Orange decided against, instead preserving them. Orange County is California's second most populous county and part of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area with a combined population of more than 13 million.

Diversity

Of the foreign-born population in Orange County, about half are from Latin America and about 35% are from Asia. Mexicans alone account for 40% of the foreign-born population.

Population Growth

In 1900, just 2 years after Orange’s incorporation in 1888, the population stood at 1,216. This would grow steadily, at a respectable rate, until around the 1950s, when a second real estate boom saw increased development.

Due in part to the large freeway system that connected Los Angeles with its outlying areas like Orange, large housing developments grew from the 1950s to the early 1970s, and continue to do so, albeit at a decreased pace. The population of Orange had increased by over 700% in this time, going from slightly over 10,000 in 1970 to 77,365 in 1970.

Orange County's population growth has slowed dramatically in recent years and is now far slower than the national pace (https://www.ocregister.com/2019/04/18/orange-county-adds-6018-people-as-population-growth-slows-to-one-third-the-national-pace/).

The first European settlement in the area was built in 1776 in Alta California, New Spain. 25 years later in 1801, José Antonio Yorba was granted land which he named Rancho San Antonio. This large rancho included modern-day Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Olive, Orange, Tustin, and Villa Park.

The land comprising Alta California was ceded to the U.S. after the Mexican-American War in 1848. A townsite under the name Richland was set up to build an irrigation spot along the Santiago Creek to bring water down from the canyon.

In 1873, an application was sent for a post office. The town was refused a post office as there was one under the same name Richland in California near Sacramento. This is when the town's name was changed to Orange.

The small town of Orange was incorporated in April of 1888, and at the time earned the nickname Plaza City, as it was the only city in the county built around a plaza. It was then the first developed town site to be served by the California Southern Railroad when the United States’ transcontinental rail line made it to Orange County.

Orange saw its first major boost to the population at the turn of the century due to rising demand for California citrus fruit. Like the majority of cities in Orange County, the local economy was shaped by the agriculture industry.