Laguna Beach: Laguna Beach is a coastline jewel of sheer cliffs, coves, rolling hills and canyons with deep roots as an artist colony. While interest in the arts has escalated and tourism has boomed, Laguna remains a charming small-town village.

The City of Laguna Beach is well known as a unique beach community and artist's colony with seven miles of City beaches running along its nine square miles. The resident population enjoys the ambiance provided by the sandy beaches, canyons and coastal hills. During the summer, several million visitors are drawn to the resort environment for its picturesque beaches, art festivals and the Pageant of the Masters. Laguna's village scale shopping district, bluff top walkways and tram system create a pedestrian environment and scale which is unique in Southern California.

Laguna Beach is a seaside resort and artist community located in southern Orange County, California, approximately 24 miles (39 km) southeast of the county seat of Santa Ana. Its population was 23,727 at the 2000 census. It is known for having some of the most beautiful beaches in southern California. The city has good hotels, unique shops and restaurants, world famous art galleries and art festivals. Many movies and TV shows have been filmed there.

In the early history of Laguna Beach, many artists and counterculture activists moved from nearby Los Angeles and settled in the charming cottages along the Laguna hillsides. Today few artists remain, as the town is one of the wealthiest places in North America. Most artists in the community now live in Laguna Canyon.

Laguna Coast Wilderness Park is a nature enthusiast's dream, part of 19,000 acres of contiguous open space with coastal preserves, trails, lakes and woods. Neighborhood parks are prevalent, with 20 for picnics, play and views. Laguna occupies 9.1 square miles and has seven miles of coastline.

Home to the Pageant of the Masters, Festival of Arts, Sawdust Art Festival and some of the oldest art institutions in Orange County, including the Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Playhouse and the Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna Beach is practically synonymous with art. With about 100 art galleries and 18 arts organizations, the art community encompasses both culture and commerce.

Because Laguna is a popular summer destination, drawing crowds to the many art festivals, traffic can back up. Parking can be scarce, but the city offers free trams to transport visitors from peripheral parking lots. The population is close to 24,000, but there are about 3 million visitors each year.

The community of Laguna Beach is the second oldest city in Southern Orange County -- only San Juan Capistrano is older—and it exists for one simple reason. The area where Laguna is situated was considered to be so worthless that none of the large ranchos surrounding it cared to claim it during the land grab which ensued after California was wrested away from Mexico.

Settlers arriving after the Civil War found scarce amounts of land available for homesteading, and one such tract, known then simply as "the public lands" was the coastal strip from Laguna Canyon to Three Arch Bay. One family, the Thurstons, claimed the land in Aliso Canyon and during the 1870s built a house about a mile from the beach. Soon a small community, named Arch Beach, had been started just north of there at the mouth of Bluebird Canyon. By the early 1880s most of the land around its small Post Office and general store had been subdivided. At about the time that Orange County separated from Los Angeles County and became independent in 1889, the little community was caught in an economic downturn and failed.

When the economy renewed itself, the decision was made to relocate the town to the mouth of Laguna Canyon. This was possible because a dispute with the Irvine ranch over the public right to traverse Laguna Canyon had been resolved in the courts, allowing an additional means of access to the coast.