Buena Park, California
| Buena Park, California | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| City | |||
The entrance to Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park
|
|||
|
|||
| Motto: "Center of the Southland" | |||
 Location of Buena Park within Orange County, California. |
|||
 Buena Park, California
|
|||
| Coordinates: 33°51′22″N 118°0′15″W / 33.85611°N 118.00417°WCoordinates: 33°51′22″N 118°0′15″W / 33.85611°N 118.00417°W | |||
| Country |
 United States
|
||
| State |
 California
|
||
| County | Orange | ||
| Founded | 1887 | ||
| Incorporated | January 27, 1953 | ||
| Government | |||
| • City council |
Mayor Elizabeth Swift Fred Smith Steve Berry Art Brown Virginia Vaughn |
||
| • City manager | James B. Vanderpool | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 10.553 sq mi (27.332 km2) | ||
| • Land | 10.524 sq mi (27.257 km2) | ||
| • Water | 0.029 sq mi (0.075 km2) 0.28% | ||
| Elevation | 75 ft (23 m) | ||
| Population (April 1, 2010) | |||
| • Total | 80,530 | ||
| • Estimate (2014) | 83,105 | ||
| • Density | 7,600/sq mi (2,900/km2) | ||
| Time zone | Pacific (UTC−8) | ||
| • Summer (DST) | PDT (UTC−7) | ||
| ZIP codes | 90620–90624 | ||
| Area code | 714 | ||
| FIPS code | 06-08786 | ||
| GNIS feature IDs | 1652676, 2409932 | ||
| Website | www |
||
Buena Park is a city in northwestern Orange County, California, about 12 miles (20 km) northwest of downtown Santa Ana, the county seat. As of Census 2010 the population was 80,530. The city is the location of several tourist attractions, including Knott's Berry Farm. It is located within the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Original Spanish explorers settled on the enormous ranchos by land grants made by the King of Spain. Manuel Nieto of the Portolà expeditions received such a grant in 1783, which was divided by his heirs into five separate ranchos in 1834. One of them, 46,806-acre (189.42 km2) Rancho Los Coyotes, included the current site of the City of Buena Park. The rancho’s adobe headquarters lay on what is now Los Coyotes Country Club’s golf course.
The area was transferred from Spanish authority to Mexican rule in 1822 and ceded to the United States in 1848 at the end of the Mexican–American War. California was granted statehood in 1850. Americanization further expanded in the area after completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 and its connection to Los Angeles in 1875. By then, Abel Stearns had acquired Rancho Los Coyotes in consideration for loans made to Pio and Andrés Pico. In 1885, James A. Whitaker, a wholesale grocer from Chicago, purchased 690 acres (2.8 km2) of this land from Stearns. In 1887, Whitaker founded the City of Buena Park in conjunction with the railway development of what we now know as Orange County.
The exact derivation of the name Buena Park is uncertain. One theory is that Whitaker used the name of a Chicago suburb: Buena Park, Chicago, Illinois, although the community in Illinois was also named in 1887. Another theory relates to the artesian well and its park-like grounds once located at the current intersection of what are now Artesia Blvd. and Beach Blvd. Local settlers referred to the area as "Plaza Buena" which means "good park" in Spanish.
...
Wikipedia