Santa Ana, California

Santa Ana (Spanish for 'Saint Anne') is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, California, United States. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census. As of 2023, Santa Ana is the third most populous city in Orange County (after Anaheim and Irvine), the 14th-most populous city in California, and the 65th most populous city in the United States. Santa Ana is a major regional economic and cultural hub for the Orange Coast.

In 1810, the Spanish governor of California granted Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana to José Antonio Yorba. Following the Mexican War of Independence, the Yorba family rancho was enlarged, becoming one of the largest and most valuable in the region and home to a diverse Californio community. Following the American Conquest of California, the rancho was sold to the Sepúlveda family, who subsequently lost their land claim. In 1869, William H. Spurgeon then purchased the rancho and formally founded the modern city of Santa Ana.

Approximately four-fifths Hispanic or Latino, Santa Ana has been characterized by The New York Times as the "face of a new California, a state where Latinos have more influence in everyday life—electorally, culturally and demographically—than almost anywhere else in the country."

Members of the Tongva and Juaneño/Luiseño are indigenous to the area. The Tongva called the Santa Ana area "Hotuuk". The village of Pajbenga was located at modern day Santa Ana along the Santa Ana River. The Santa Ana river was a source for many of the Tongva villages and the Spanish Portola Expedition stayed and named this river.

After the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portolá out of Mexico City, then capital of New Spain, Friar Junípero Serra named the area Vallejo de Santa Ana (Valley of Saint Anne, or Santa Ana Valley). On November 1, 1776, Mission San Juan Capistrano was established within this valley.

In 1810, the first year of the Mexican War of Independence, Jose Antonio Yorba, a sergeant of the Spanish army, was granted land that he called Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana. Yorba's rancho included the lands where the cities of Olive, Orange, Irvine, Yorba Linda, Villa Park, Santa Ana, Tustin, Costa Mesa and unincorporated El Modena, and Santa Ana Heights, are today. This rancho was the only land grant in Orange County granted under Spanish Rule. Surrounding land grants in Orange County were granted after Mexican Independence by the new government.

After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, Alta California became part of the United States and American settlers arrived in this area.

Santa Ana was listed as a township of Los Angeles County in the 1860 and 1870 census, with an area encompassing most of what is now northern and central Orange County. It had a population of 756 in 1860 and 880 in 1870. The Anaheim district was enumerated separately from Santa Ana in 1870.