Race and ethnicity 77, 9% of people in Santa Ana, CA are Hispanic (259k people). The table below shows the 7 races represented in Santa Ana, CA as a proportion of the total population. Despite the city's high percentage of Democrats, the city tends to vote conservatively on social issues, as does the rest of northern Orange County. Having been a constituent city since November 11, 1952, the citizens of Santa Ana amended the charter in November 1988 to provide for the direct election of the mayor, who until then had been appointed from among the members of the council.
Santa Ana was listed as a municipality in Los Angeles County in the 1860 and 1870 censuses, with an area that encompasses most of what is now north and center of Orange County. Greenville, a former rural area of Santa Ana, has buildings that are more than a century old, but industrial complexes have replaced the agricultural fields that once surrounded the city. The core of the city is the downtown area, which contains both stores and housing, as well as the Santa Ana Civic Center, which is a dense campus of administrative buildings for both the city and Orange County. Firestone Boulevard, the first direct driving route between Los Angeles and Santa Ana, opened in 1935; it was extended to the Santa Ana Highway in 1953. To compete with this, Santa Ana has approved commercial projects in the South Coast metropolitan area, as well as the Metro East development, located at the confluence of the Santa Ana Highway and the Costa Mesa Highway.
Santa Ana is the corporate headquarters of several companies, including Behr Paint, First American Corporation, Greenwood & Hall, Ingram Micro, SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union, STEC, TTM Technologies, Kern's and Wahoo Fish Taco. In 1810, the first year of Mexico's War of Independence, José Antonio Yorba, a sergeant in the Spanish army, was granted land that he called Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana. The Santa Ana Unified School District includes 37 K-5 elementary schools, nine middle schools 6-8, eight high schools 9-12, five special schools, and one charter school. Greyhound Lines is Santa Ana's largest bus service and serves the continental United States and Canada.
The origins of Santa Ana began in 1810, when the Spanish governor of California granted the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana to José Antonio Yorba. But be careful, Santa Ana, because Riverside with 327,569 people and Stockton with 311,103 people are right behind you. Operate your Pacific Surfliner between San Diego to the south and Los Angeles or San Luis Obispo to the north (see Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center). With the most current & most popular demographics, it's the perfect starting point for your research on Santa Ana and the rest of California.
