OC Geography 101

The name Orange was first applied to the city of Orange, founded in 1872. The settlement was originally named Richland, but founding fathers learned that the name had already been adopted by a town near Sacramento. So Richland was dropped, though its fun to think of a city and county named Richland. Instead of Orange County, Richland County?! Some might think Richland County apropos. The county indeed was named for its flourishing citrus industry, when it detached from Los Angeles County in 1889 to form the new Orange County

Orange County shares its coastline and coastal plain with neighboring Los Angeles County, but has a distinct geographical identity. This geography, which in the decades since World War II has been almost unbelievably altered by the hand of man, nevertheless retains much intrigue for the lover of wild places.

The orchards that gave Orange County its name are nearly gone, but the hills and mountains occupying half the County still afford invigorating vistas. This guide seeks out what remains of the pastoral in the County's hills and canyons.

San Mateo Point is the northernmost boundary of San Diego County, the southern boundary of Orange County. When the original counties of Los Angeles and San Diego were set up in 1850, the line that separated them began on the coast at San Mateo Point. When Orange County was formed from southern Los Angeles County in 1889, San Mateo Point was established as the southern point of the new county.  The northern boundary is Seal Beach. Riverside County and the Santa Ana Mountains form the eastern boundary.

During the last decade of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th, the County was known for its fruited plain watered by the Santa Ana River. (Although the Santa Ana for most of its length is now a cement-lined flood control channel, it was once a substantial river and even today is Southern California's leader in average annual runoff.) Citrus and other fruits, flowers and vegetables were successfully grown on the fertile coastal plain. Valencia orange groves, protected from the wind by long rows of eucalyptus, stretched across the plain to the foothills.

Today the coastal plain has been almost completely covered by residential and commercial development. Once huge farms and ranches such as Laguna Niguel, Moulton, Mission Viejo and Irvine are now suburbs.

Protecting the last of Orange County's ecological heritage are city, county, state and federal agencies, with assistance from many nonprofits such as The Nature Conservancy and the Irvine Ranch Trust.

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