Huntington Beach California
Huntington Beach is located in Orange County and as the name suggests it is a beach city. Its stretch of sand is the longest in the West Coast, spanning a eight and a half miles. With a consistently high quality of Pacific Ocean breaks Huntington Beach earned it the nickname Surf City USA, which it recently trademarked. It has a population of more than 200,000 residents occupying an area of over 81 kilometers.

After the area’s ranching activities began to dwindle, an early settlement called Shell Beach came into being at the end of the nineteenth century. A few years later, led by Philip Stanton, a group of ranchers decided to develop the settlement into a tourist destination, modeled after the east coast Atlantic City and named it Pacific City. Unfortunately they did not have sufficient capital with which to develop and promote the resort and in 1904 they sold the land to railway man Henry Huntington who extended his railway line down through Orange County. Once the trains began running, the city was named Huntington Beach.

In a strange twist of fate, the developers sold hard to develop tracts of land to a company to give away when someone bought an entire set of encyclopedias, they were horrified when this land yielded large oil reserves and the oil boom began in Huntington Beach.

The Huntington Beach surfing story began in the early 20th century when Duke Kahanamoku came from Hawaii and introduced the sport to California. The first Surf Board Shop opened in the 1950’s and as the popularity grew surfing competitions were held there. Many of the sports top global competitions are held in Huntington Beach each year and attract a huge influx of spectators.

Huntington Beach has one of the lowest crime rates for cities in the USA and an exceptionally high level of public services. The Huntington Beach Art Center and the Huntington Beach Playhouse provide a wide variety of cultural activities. Aside from the beach areas the many parks and the Bolsa Chica Wetlands are excellent public spaces to take the family.

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