Santa Ana (California) is a city in southwestern California and also seat of Orange County. The city is situated in the southern area of a vast metropolitan region centered on Los Angeles. Santa Ana is a hub for commercial, financial, and governmental activity. The retail, manufacturing, and also professional services sectors are essential to the economy.
Museums include the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, the Discovery Museum of Orange County, as well as the Orange County Center of Contemporary Art. The Artists Village in downtown Santa Ana is a complex of artist residences, galleries, classrooms, and studios, and includes the California State University-Fullerton Grand Central Art Center. Santa Ana also is home to the Santa Ana Zoo, a historic downtown area, as well as a community college.
A Spanish expedition party brought by Gaspár de Portolá named the area Santa Ana around 1769 in honor of Saint Anne. Originally used for cattle grazing, the site of the present-day city was included in a Spanish land grant known as Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana and issued to José Antonio Yorba and Juan Peralta in 1810. The area also started off developing being a farming community. It was laid out in 1869, and its name was shortened to its original form; the city incorporated in 1886. Santa Ana experienced swift residential and industrial development beginning in the 1950s.
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