Mission Viejo, CA

Mission Viejo is a city in Orange County, California. Mission Viejo is considered one of the largest master-planned communities ever built under a single project in the United States, and is rivaled only by Highlands Ranch, Colorado, in its size.

Mission Viejo is suburban in nature and culture. The city is mainly residential, although there are a number of offices and businesses within its city limits. The city is known for its picturesque tree-lined neighborhoods, receiving recognition from the National Arbor Day Foundation. The city’s name is a reference to Rancho Mission Viejo, a large Spanish land grant from which the community was founded.

History of Mission Viejo, CA

Mission Viejo was purchased by John Forster, a Mexican also known as Don Juan. During the Mexican-American War, Forster provided fresh horses to United States military forces which were used on the march of San Diego to retake Los Angeles.

Mission Viejo was a hilly region primarily used as cattle and sheep grazing land, since it was of little use to farmers. This city was one of the last regions of Orange County to be urbanized due to its geologic complexity.

In 1960, early developers dismissed most of the land in Mission Viejo as simply “undevelopable”. Donald Bren, an urban planner who later became the president of the Irvine Company, drafted a master plan which placed roads in the valleys and houses on the hills, and contoured to the geography of the area. The plan worked, and by 1980 much of the city of Mission Viejo was completed. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, houses in Mission Viejo were in such high demand that housing tracts often sold out before construction even began on them. The houses and shopping centers in the city are almost uniformly designed in a Spanish mission style, with “adobe”-like stucco walls and barrel-tile roofs.

Population of Mission Viejo, CA

The population of Mission Viejo in 2011 had an estimated population of 96,346.

Top employers in Mission Viejo, CA

• Saddleback College
• Mission Hospital
• Unisys
• Quest Diagnostics
• Coldwell Banker
• Saddleback Valley Unified School District

Mission Viejo, CA Zip Codes: 92690, 92691, 92692, 92694

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