US Map / Cities / Santa Ana

Santa Ana Map

Santa Ana is the seat of Orange County and one of the most densely populated large cities in the country, on the flat river plain a few miles inland from the Pacific.

Where is Santa Ana?

Santa Ana lies at the center of Orange County, California, about 10 miles inland from the beaches at Huntington and Newport and roughly 35 miles down the freeway from Los Angeles. Anaheim adjoins it to the north, Irvine to the southeast, and Long Beach is some 20 miles northwest. Riverside is about 35 miles northeast over the hills, and San Diego roughly 90 miles down the coast. Nothing separates Santa Ana from its neighbors on the ground: the city line is a street, not a gap.

Santa Ana at a glance

Santa Ana in California

Santa Ana has been the seat of Orange County since the county split from Los Angeles County in 1889, and the courthouse, the county administration and the main jail are all here — the California county map shows how small the county is for the three million people in it. Santa Ana is the second largest of its cities after Anaheim, and it is much the densest of the three Orange County entries in the national top 100, with more people per square mile than Los Angeles. Its population is heavily Mexican-American, and it has been one of the country's most consistently immigrant cities for decades. The California state page gives the wider view.

The river plain and the coastal gap

The city takes its name from the Santa Ana River, which the Portola expedition reached and named in 1769 and which now passes along the western edge of town in a concrete channel. The land here is the river's own floodplain: flat, low, and built from silt washed out of the San Bernardino Mountains, with an elevation of about 100 feet and almost no relief anywhere in the city. The Santa Ana Mountains stand to the east, and the gap between their northern end and the Chino Hills is the canyon that carries the river and the freeway inland. Between Santa Ana and the sea lies a strip of low ground, once marshland and sugar beet fields, now the airport and the beach cities. The Pacific coast is close enough that the marine layer reaches the city most summer mornings.

Cities near Santa Ana

Anaheim and Irvine are neighbors, Long Beach and Los Angeles lie northwest, and Riverside and San Diego bracket the region inland and south. Six of the hundred largest US cities are within an hour of here — the US map with cities is the quickest way to see how little ground they cover.