Anaheim

Anaheim was founded in 1857 by German immigrants from San Francisco who bought land beside the Santa Ana River to grow wine grapes. The name joins "Ana", after the river, with the German "Heim", home. The colony prospered until the 1880s, when a vine disease destroyed its vineyards, and the settlers turned to walnuts and then oranges. By the early 20th century orange groves surrounded the town, and packing houses such as the one built in 1919 shipped fruit across the country.

The city's history has darker chapters. In 1924 members of the Ku Klux Klan were elected to the city council, before voters recalled them in a special election in 1925.

In 1955 Walt Disney opened Disneyland on former orange groves, and Anaheim changed almost overnight. Motels and restaurants spread along Harbor Boulevard, the groves were built over with tract housing, and the population grew rapidly. The convention centre followed in 1967, a year after the Angels moved into their new stadium. The resort district was rebuilt around the turn of the 21st century, when Disney California Adventure opened in 2001, while the old downtown has been revived since the 2010s around its surviving historic buildings, including the packing house, reopened as a food hall in 2014.

For much of the world Anaheim means Disneyland, and the resort shapes the city's identity, employment and budget. But the city is also a sports town, home to the Angels in baseball and the Ducks in ice hockey, and its convention centre brings music, video and pop-culture events that fill the district with fans.

Anaheim is one of the most diverse cities in Orange County. More than half of its residents are Latino, many with Mexican roots, and there are large Asian American communities. The Middle Eastern businesses along Brookhurst Street have grown into Little Arabia, the centre for Orange County's Arab Americans, and its restaurants and bakeries draw people from across the region.

Neighbourhood life is suburban and family-centred: weekend football and baseball in the parks, church and mosque, quinceañeras and backyard gatherings. The city's German founders are remembered in the Anaheim Colony, the largest of downtown's historic districts. Residents often distinguish between "the resort" and the rest of Anaheim, and debate how much the city's budget and politics revolve around Disney.

About 345,000 people lived in Anaheim at the 2020 census, making it the most populous city in Orange County, part of a metropolitan area of about 13 million that includes Los Angeles. The city stretches about 20 miles from the flat older districts in the west to the canyon suburbs of Anaheim Hills in the east.

The Disneyland Resort is the largest employer, and tourism, hotels and conventions support tens of thousands of jobs, many of them low-paid. Manufacturing, logistics and healthcare are also important. Housing costs are high, as across coastal California, and many workers live in crowded homes or commute long distances; wages and housing for resort workers are a recurring political issue.

Daily rhythms follow the freeways. Commuters crowd the 5, the 57 and the 91 morning and evening, and most errands are made by car to shopping centres along the wide boulevards. Evenings bring fireworks visible from many neighbourhoods near the resort, and game nights bring traffic to the stadium district. The redevelopment of the land around Angel Stadium is a long-running local debate.

Anaheim's own story is written in citrus. The orange groves are gone, but the restored packing house downtown now serves as a food hall, and Orange County's farmers' markets still sell local avocados, strawberries and citrus. Mexican food is the everyday staple: taquerías, tamales, carne asada and aguas frescas (fruit drinks) are found in every neighbourhood.

The city's most distinctive food district is Little Arabia on Brookhurst Street. Its restaurants and bakeries serve shawarma carved from the spit, falafel, hummus, grilled kebabs, manakish — flatbreads topped with za'atar, a thyme and sesame mix, or with cheese — and knafeh, a sweet cheese pastry soaked in syrup. Middle Eastern grocers sell spices, olives and fresh flatbread.

Orange County's other immigrant communities are close at hand. Little Saigon in neighbouring Westminster and Garden Grove is famous for pho (beef noodle soup), banh mi sandwiches and Vietnamese coffee, and Korean, Filipino and Indian restaurants are common across the area. Inside the resort, theme-park snacks such as churros and turkey legs are part of the experience for many visitors.