THE ORANGE COUNTY LAND BRIEF
Land in the
Los Angeles Plain setting.
Orange County has 793.2 square miles of land in California. 5 mapped landscape regions meet across Orange County: Los Angeles Plain, Diegan Coastal Hills and Valleys, Santa Ana Mountains, among others.
Coastal and alluvial plains alternate with low hills in southern California. Sage scrub, chaparral and oak communities characterize the region's natural coastal landscape.
Regional context: Southern California/Northern Baja Coast ↗ · Regional mapping across the county footprint
Where the landscape changes
Orange County intersects 5 mapped regional units. The largest mapped shares are:
- Los Angeles Plain48.2%
- Diegan Coastal Hills and Valleys34.1%
- Santa Ana Mountains11.3%
- Diegan Coastal Terraces3.4%
- Venturan-Angeleno Coastal Hills2.9%
Finding your parcel within Orange County
The atlas lists 47 cities, towns, townships, and Census communities associated with Orange County, including Irvine, Anaheim, Rancho Mission Viejo. The list includes overlapping geography types and does not divide the county into exclusive service areas.
Orange County by land and water
The Census records 156.5 square miles of water within Orange County, or 16.5% of its total area. That share is close to Orange County’s 16.5%. This is geographic context; waterfront status and usable land must be checked at the parcel.
For scale, Orange County has 12.1 times the land area of nearby Irvine city (65.6 square miles). These areas describe boundaries, not comparable property prices.
The Census boundary meets Los Angeles County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, San Diego County within California. A tract near one of these lines should be matched to the county identifier on its own records.