About Riverside

Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Inland Empire area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California city after Fresno, Sacramento, and Bakersfield, and is located approximately 60 miles (97 km) east of Los Angeles. Riverside is the 59th most populous city in the United States and 12th most populous city in California. It is also part of the Greater Los Angeles area. As of the 2010 Census, Riverside had a population of 303,871. The city spans 81 square miles (210 km2) making it the second largest city by area in the county behind Palm Springs.

Riverside was founded in the early 1870s and is the birthplace of the California citrus industry as well as home of the Mission Inn, the largest Mission Revival Style building in the United States. It is also home to the Riverside National Cemetery.

The University of California, Riverside, is located in the northeastern part of the city. The university also hosts the Riverside Sports Complex. Other attractions in Riverside include the Fox Performing Arts Center, Riverside Metropolitan Museum, which houses exhibits and artifacts of local history, the California Museum of Photography, the California Citrus State Historic Park, and the Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree, one of the two original navel orange trees in California.

The city was founded in the early 1870s beside the Santa Ana River by John W. North, a staunch temperance-minded abolitionist from Tennessee, who had previously founded Northfield, Minnesota. A few years after, the navel orange was planted and found to be such a success that full-scale planting started. Riverside was temperance minded, and Republican. There were four saloons in Riverside when it was founded. The license fees were raised until the saloons moved out of Riverside. Investors from England and Canada transplanted traditions and activities adopted by prosperous citizens. As a result, the first golf course and polo field in Southern California were built in Riverside.