Anaheim

City in southwestern California, USA, 50 km/31 mi southeast of Los Angeles; part of Orange County; population (1994 est) 282,100. Industries include electronic and farm equipment, batteries, and processed foods. Disneyland amusement park (opened 1955) is located here.

History Anaheim was settled by German immigrants in 1858 as a wine-producing community, and was incorporated as a city in 1876. The city's name is derived from the nearby Santa Ana River and from the word ‘heim’ (German: ‘home’). In 1940 Anaheim was still a small farming town with a population of 11,000; by 1970 it had 166,700 inhabitants, and its wider metropolitan area – under the influence of the Los Angeles conurbation – was the fastest growing in the USA. Most of this urban expansion has taken place at the expense, in land-use terms, of the orange groves which gave the county its name, and agriculture has largely given way to housing