Why you'd want to live in Irvine

Nestled in the valley between Loma Ridge to the north and the San Joaquin Hills to the south, Irvine thrives at the center of Orange County. In fact, location is one of Irvine's best features. Bordered by Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, Tustin and Laguna Woods, the City of Irvine not only offers a great place for vacations or meetings, it's also a convenient gateway to some of the best attractions of Southern California. Many of those attractions, like Disneyland Park® and Knott's Berry Farm, are less than 25 miles away. And because Irvine is criss-crossed by Interstate 405 running roughly east-west, Interstate 5 as an inland parallel to the California coast, and Highway 55 (Costa Mesa Freeway) connecting the two, it offers easy to access all of Orange County's attractions, beaches and communities. With our city so perfectly positioned, it's little wonder that the University of California established a campus here in the 1960s. The arrival of UC Irvine began the modern chapter of an area whose history had been written in ranching and farming for hundreds of years. The combination of natural beauty, mild climate, world-class education and placement at the center of Orange County quickly sparked a vision for the master-planned community that would become the City of Irvine. Today, Irvine is a multicultural nexus of education, innovation, business, preserved wildlands, outdoor recreation, the arts and family-friendly communities -- a growing urban center roughly 45 square miles with a population of just over 200,000. Quality of life here is high, and the FBI has ranked Irvine "America's Safest Big City" every year since 2005. via Destination Irvine