Book Anaheim attraction tickets

Anaheim sits in the flatlands of Orange County, roughly 35 miles south-east of downtown Los Angeles, and for most visitors the city's identity begins and ends with a single address on West Disneyland Drive. That is not a criticism. Few places on earth have shaped the global imagination of leisure and childhood wonder quite so deliberately, and the original Disneyland park, which opened here in 1955 as Walt Disney's first purpose-built theme park, remains the anchor around which the entire city organises itself. The resort has since expanded to encompass a second gate, Disney California Adventure, along with the Downtown Disney retail and dining district, and the combined footprint draws tens of millions of visitors each year, making Anaheim one of the most visited destinations in the western United States.

The surrounding city is more layered than its reputation suggests. The Anaheim Resort District, the zone of hotels and attractions immediately flanking the parks, has its own pedestrian energy, particularly along Harbor Boulevard, where the density of accommodation and dining options reflects decades of infrastructure built specifically around the resort economy. Further north, the Anaheim Packing District occupies a restored 1919 citrus packing house in the Colony neighbourhood, the city's original commercial core, and offers a more locally rooted experience of food halls and independent vendors. The Colony itself, centred on the intersection of Center Street and Lemon Street, preserves some of the oldest architecture in Orange County and gives a sense of what Anaheim looked like before the freeway era reshaped Southern California.