Laguna Beach, California
44 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1896 and the latest in 1983. It stands in the South Coast census division. It lies in ZIP code area 92651. It lies near Laguna Canyon. The Survey maps it on the Laguna Beach quadrangle. 23,032 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 20 feet above sea level.
Then and now
1896 to 1983The same ground, surveyed 87 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.


Compare 1896 against another survey:
On record in Laguna Beach
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 5 records
Crystal Cove Historic Districtlisted 1979
Marionalisted 1984
New Lynn Theaterlisted 2023
St. Francis by-the-Sea American Catholic Churchlisted 1988- Edward and America Griffith Houselisted 2021
Population over time
4 figuresLaguna Beach grew from 1,981 to 23,032 between 1930 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 1930 | 1,981 | |
| 2000 | 23,727 | |
| 2010 | 22,723 | -1,004 (-4%) |
| 2020 | 23,032 | +309 (+1%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
17 surveys from 44 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1896 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1901 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:62500, 6 printings
- 1901 USGS Southern California Sheet No. 1 quadrangle1:250000, 6 printings
- 1902 USGS Corona quadrangle1:125000, 7 printings
- 1904 USGS Southern California Sheet No. 1 quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1942 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
- 1947 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
- 1948 USGS Laguna Beach quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1949 USGS Laguna Beach quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1949 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
- 1956 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
- 1959 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1960 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1965 USGS Laguna Beach quadrangle1:24000, 4 printings
- 1965 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:250000
- 1974 USGS Laguna Beach quadrangle1:24000
- 1983 USGS Santa Ana quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
50 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 50 fires within 5 miles of Laguna Beach between 1994 and 2020, burning about 185 acres in total. None started naturally. 15 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 19 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 15 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 7 |
| Smoking | 4 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 4 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 September 2020 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Orange County Fire Authority | not named |
| 15 September 2018 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection | not named |
| 13 September 2005 | Power generation/transmission/distribution | under an acre | California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection | not named |
| 12 September 2007 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection | not named |
| 28 August 2012 | Smoking | under an acre | Orange County Fire Authority | not named |
| 19 August 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection | not named |
| 1 August 2011 | Arson/incendiarism | under an acre | Orange County Fire Authority | not named |
| 1 August 2005 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
14 since 1998Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Laguna Beach in 14 storm reports between 1998 and 2019: 4 waterspout, 3 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 2019 | Flash Flood | Laguna Beach | $80,000 | Storm channels were inundated by flash flooding with up to 2 inches of rain in 3 hours. Streets were closed and homes threatened by waters. |
| February 2005 | Flash Flood | Laguna Beach | $60,000 | Several vehicles were nearly submerged up to their roofs in flood waters on Laguna Canyon Road. |
| February 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Laguna Beach | $25,000 | Roughly 20 trees were downed by convective winds in Laguna Beach. The nearby Laguna Beach mesonet station measured a peak gust of 67 mph at 1737PST. |
| January 2010 | Thunderstorm Wind | Laguna Beach | $25,000 | High winds associated with a line of thunderstorms moved through south Orange County between 1330 and 1400 PST on the 19th. A spotter reported wind damage at his mother's condominium complex in Laguna Niguel, near Oso Parkway and Highway 73. A twelve foot tall tennis court enclosure with 4 inch aluminum posts was bent outwards at a 25 degree angle, two mature trees with a trunk diameter of greater than 12 inches were snapped off just above the ground level, and numerous 4 inch diameter tree branches from a pine tree broke off. The spotter was not at the location at the time, but observed the damage two months after it happened. The mother and another neighbor felt a suction and the windows of their condos shook violently. It is possible that a tornado briefly touched down in the complex, though no other reports of a tornado could be found. |
| February 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Laguna Beach | $25,000 | no account filed |
| February 2005 | Flash Flood | Laguna Beach | $20,000 | Some roads were washed out and others were covered in mud and rushing water after hours of heavy rain. |
| February 2003 | Flood | Laguna Beach | - | no account filed |
| July 2003 | Rip Current | Laguna Beach | - | no account filed |
| May 2001 | Waterspout | Laguna Beach | - | no account filed |
| August 2001 | Wildfire | Laguna Beach | - | no account filed |
| June 1999 | Waterspout | Laguna Beach | - | no account filed |
| April 1998 | Waterspout | Laguna Beach | - | no account filed |
| January 1998 | Waterspout | Laguna Beach | - | no account filed |
| April 1998 | Hail | Laguna Beach | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canyon Acres | 0.9 miles | 44 | |
| Emerald Bay | 1.6 miles | 44 | |
| Top of the World | 1.6 miles | 44 | |
| Aliso Viejo | 3.4 miles | 37 | |
| South Laguna | 3.6 miles | 37 | |
| Crystal Cove | 3.8 miles | 44 | |
| Laguna Niguel | 4.2 miles | 37 | |
| Three Arch Bay | 4.5 miles | 32 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Laguna Beach | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q1908566 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1660874. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
















