General Information
Orange County, highlighted in red in the map below, is located in central Florida. In 2000 the population of the county was 896,344. The largest city in Orange County is Orlando which is also the county seat.
Geography
Orange county has a total area of 1,004 square miles of which 97 square miles (9.63%) is water. The many lakes in the county combined with its location in the "Sunshine State" makes Orange County a very popular place to live.
History
The county was created in 1824 and was originally named Mosquito County. Thankfully it was renamed Orange County in 1845, named for the fruit that constituted the county’s main product and industry. There are no longer any commercial orange groves in Orange County, but there still remains several packing plants and wholesalers who get their oranges from southern Florida.
Perhaps the most meaningful change in the county’s history occurred in 1965 when Walt Disney announced the future opening of Walt Disney World. When the famous theme park opened in 1971 the tourism industry had a huge explosion in growth forever changing the economic dynamics for the entire area.
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