Founded in 1869, Santa Ana is the most populous city in Orange County, California, USA and is the county seat, with an estimated 353,184 people. >http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-1_2006-07/ Santa Ana is located in Southern California on the Santa Ana River, ten miles (16 km) away from the California coast. Santa Ana is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area#Los Angeles"Long Beach"Santa Ana MSA which, according to the United States Census Bureau, is the second largest metropolitan area in the United States, with almost thirteen million people. Among U.S. cities with more than 300,000 people, Santa Ana is the 4th-most...

Founded in 1869, Santa Ana is the most populous city in Orange County, California, USA and is the county seat, with an estimated 353,184 people. >http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-1_2006-07/ Santa Ana is located in Southern California on the Santa Ana River, ten miles (16 km) away from the California coast. Santa Ana is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area#Los Angeles"Long Beach"Santa Ana MSA which, according to the United States Census Bureau, is the second largest metropolitan area in the United States, with almost thirteen million people. Among U.S. cities with more than 300,000 people, Santa Ana is the 4th-most densely populated.

Santa Ana lends its name to the Santa Ana Freeway (Interstate 5), which runs through the city. It also shares its name with the nearby Santa Ana Mountains and the infamous Santa Ana Winds, which historically have fueled seasonal wildfires throughout Southern California. >http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~fovell/ASother/mm5/SantaAna/winds.html The current Office of Management and Budget (OMB) metropolitan designation for Santa Ana and the Orange County, California is'Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, California'.

History
Members of the Tongva and Juane??o/Luise??o nations long inhabited the area. After the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portol?? out of Mexico City, then capitol of New Spain, Friar Junipero 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. This Santa Ana Valley comprised most of what is now called Orange County.

In 1810, year of the commencement of the war of Mexican 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, California, Orange, California, Irvine, California,Yorba Linda, California, Villa Park, California, Santa Ana, Tustin, California, Costa Mesa, California and unincorporated El Modena, California, and Santa Ana Heights, are today. This ranch was the only land grant in Orange County granted under New Spain. 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.