Sunset Beach, California
neighborhood of Huntington Beach, California; formerly a census-designated place in Orange County, California, USA
Sunset Beach is a Huntington Beach beachfront community in Orange County, California. It was established on September 8, 1904 and developed as a result of the 1920 discovery of oil in the Huntington Beach Oil Field. The census-designated place of Sunset Beach, and its population of 971 as of the 2010 census, was annexed by Huntington Beach in 2011. The elevation is 5.3 feet (1.6 m) above sea level and the community is stretched out along Pacific Coast Highway bracketed by the ocean and Huntington Harbour.
History
Sunset Beach was established in 1904 and developed as a result of the 1920 discovery of oil in the Huntington Beach Oil Field. On August 2, 2010, the Huntington Beach city council, in a 5–2 vote, voted to annex Sunset Beach making the community a part of the much larger Huntington Beach. The annexation was to have officially begun in January 2011 but a group of residents filed suit on December 9, 2010, to stop the annexation due to new taxes that would be imposed on them once they become part of Huntington Beach. A hearing for a preliminary injunction was scheduled for January 19, 2011, in Orange County Superior Court. Huntington Beach officially annexed Sunset Beach in August 2011.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP covered an area of 0.2 square miles (0.52 km2), 97.51% of it land, and 2.49% of it water.
“Sunset Beach, California” enters the record as neighborhood of Huntington Beach, California; formerly a census-designated place in Orange County, California, USA. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sunset, Beach and California can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Sunset Beach, California” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sunset, Beach and California provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3322861. Authority coordinates are 33.718, -118.073. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1904, 1920, 2010 and 2011.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Sunset Beach, California”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Sunset Beach, California primary sources, Sunset Beach, California archive and Sunset research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sunset Beach, California”?
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Sunset Beach, California” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.