Huntington Beach, "Surf City," is a seaside city in Orange County in southern California. It is known for its huge 8.5 miles of beach, mild climate, and excellent surfing. The waves are a unique natural effect caused by edge-diffraction of ocean swells by the island of Catalina, and waves from distant hurricanes. Because of the curve of the coastline at Huntington Beach, the local beach actually faces southwest. In summer, the southwest-facing beach often has very strong surf from hurricanes off the Mexican coast.
Voted the "Best City to Live in in Orange County" by the Orange County Register readers, Huntington Beach offers residents a charming community with ideal weather, a diversified economy overflowing with good jobs, a wide variety of housing, an excellent educational system, boat marinas, numerous parks, and exemplary health care.
Huntington Beach was ranked the "Eighth-Lowest Crime Rate Among Large U.S. Cities With Populations Over 100,000" (by the F.B.I) and was also named as "Consistently One of the Safest Large Cities in U.S." by Morgan Quitno Press, making Huntington Beach an ideal city to raise a family.
Connecting to largest public pier on the west coast, Downtown Huntington Beach Main Street is the hub of action for the City's beach dining, shopping and nightlife activities. This 5 block, two-lane stretch of pavement from 6th Street to Pacific Coast Highway is filled with lights, people, cars, sounds, food fragrances and excitement. Occasionally the downtown region is sleepy and slow, but most often you will find just the right amount activity to make your day energized, alive and completely enjoyable. Life in Surf City is very casual. The crowds are all ages, all shapes and sizes and they come from all over the world.
Schools
Huntington Beach is in the Huntington Beach Union High School District. Which includes Edison High School, Huntington Beach High School, Marina High School, and Ocean View High School in the city of Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley High School in the city of Fountain Valley, and Westminster High School in the city of Westminster. The district also has an alternative school, Valley Vista High School, and an independent study school, Coast High School.
The city has two elementary school districts: Huntington Beach City with 9 schools and Ocean View with 15.
Huntington Beach is also the home of Golden West College, which offers two-year associates of arts degrees, and transfer programs to state universities. The public television station KOCE-TV operates from the Golden West College campus, in conjunction with the Golden West College Media Arts program.
Economy
Huntington Beach also sits above a large natural salt dome containing oil. Although the oil is mostly depleted, extraction continues at a slow rate, and still provides significant local income. There are only two off-shore extraction facilities left, however, and the day is not far off when oil production in the city will cease and tourism will replace it as the primary revenue source for resident industry.
Several hotels have been constructed on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway within view of the beach, just southeast of the pier.
Huntington Beach contains a major installation of Boeing (formerly McDonnell-Douglas). A number of installations on the Boeing campus were originally constructed to service the Apollo Program, most notably the production of the S-IVB upper stage for the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets, and some nearby telephone poles are still marked "Apollo Dedicated Mission Control Line."
