South Orange County Community College District

Saddleback College (Saddleback) is a public community college in Mission Viejo, California. It is part of the California Community College system and awards over 300 associate degrees, academic certificates, and occupational skills awards in 190 programs. Established in 1968, Saddleback is the oldest and southernmost institution governed by the South Orange County Community College District. Saddleback College is named for the saddle between the twin peaks of Santiago Peak and Modjeska Peak in the Cleveland National Forest.

Providence Mission Hospital is a 523-bed acute care regional medical center in Orange County, California with two campuses - one in Mission Viejo, and the second in Laguna Beach. The hospital has designated adult and pediatric Level II Trauma centers in the state of California. Mission Hospital provides cardiovascular, neuroscience and spine, orthopedics, cancer care, women's services, mental health, wellness and a variety of other specialty services. Mission Hospital in Laguna Beach (MHLB) provides South Orange County coastal communities with 24-hour emergency and intensive care as well as medical-surgical/telemetry services, orthopedics and also general and GI surgery. CHOC Children's at Mission Hospital is a 48-bed facility that is the area's only dedicated pediatric hospital. Mission Hospital is one of only 3 Hospitals in Orange County rated as a Regional Trauma Center.

Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo is a station on the Inland Empire–Orange County Line and Orange County Line of the Metrolink commuter rail system around Southern California. Originally built to serve Metrolink, the station became a stop for Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner in 2007 but is currently not used as a limited Amtrak stop on the Pacific Surfliner route. Total daily ridership for Metrolink and Amtrak was about 500 passengers in fiscal year 2009. Of the 73 California stations served by Amtrak, Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo was the 71st-busiest in FY2010, boarding or detraining an average of approximately seven passengers daily. Metrolink trains terminate here and if they do by noon time, one train set moves over to a nearby siding track until the rush hour.

Association of American Educators (AAE) is a national, non-union, non-partisan professional educators association in the United States and is the fastest-growing association of its kind. Its stated mission is to “advance the profession through personal growth, professional development, teacher advocacy and protection.” AAE also seeks to “promote excellence in education so that [teachers] receive the respect, recognition and reward they deserve.” AAE is officially nonpartisan. AAE is not a union or a lobbying organization, but licensed as a 501(c)(6) professional trade association. AAE is funded by dues from thousands of members located in all fifty states and the District of Columbia and by contributions to the AAE Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AAE claims to “help lead a coalition of nearly 300,000 teachers across the country who have joined a non-union teacher association.”According to its website, the AAE opposes collective bargaining, strikes, and engagement in policy issues not deemed "germane to education." The site also devotes a special section to denouncing "forced unionism" of public schoolteachers, including resources to help teachers resign union membership and nominal "Public Service Announcements" decrying teachers' unions for using "confrontational tactics" and union dues to pay for a "political agenda that has little to do with education." Based on this and other evidence, the National Education Association and other groups have criticized the organization for attempting to undermine public education (see Criticism below).

Capistrano Valley High School (often called CVHS or Capo) is a public high school at the southern border of Mission Viejo, California, USA, that is run by the Capistrano Unified School District. It is set on a hilltop overlooking the San Diego Freeway (I-5) corridor and Saddleback Mountain. It is located on Via Escolar, off the Avery exit of the I-5. The school attendance boundaries primarily serve students from eastern, southern and northern Mission Viejo (the entire portion of the city in CUSD) and a small northern portion of San Juan Capistrano. CVHS is a California Distinguished School, National Blue Ribbon Finalist, and was ranked as number 488 in Newsweek's 2008 list of the top 1,300 high schools in the USA. By this standard, CVHS falls in the top 2.5% of US high schools. It is the highest ranked for the school district and second highest rank between both Saddleback Valley and Capistrano Unified that serve south Orange County.

Galivan (Spanish: Gavilán, meaning "Sparrow Hawk") is a location in Orange County, California. Most internet-based mapping websites locate Galivan as a neighborhood or small locale near the cities of Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel, about two miles north of the Interstate 5-California State Route 73 interchange. A California State Highway Map from 1960 from the Department of Public works, Division of Highways, shows Galivan 5 miles north of Highway 74. Coordinates for the location are 33.569, -117.674. While Galivan's status varies from map to map, it is almost always located at the spot where old U.S. Highway 101 (now Camino Capistrano) crossed over the Santa Fe railroad tracks. Prior to the construction of Interstate 5, a two-lane road was sufficient to carry the traffic through the then-rural area. The "Galivan Overhead" transferred the highway from one side of the railroad tracks to the other. While the bridge no longer exists, the portion of old Highway 101 is still mostly intact, and a similar bridge (designed by the same architect) can be found in Del Mar, California, also on a portion of old Highway 101, and also used to carry the roadway over the railroad tracks. Nothing remains in the area that suggests if there was ever a village there, as the surrounding area has been heavily urbanized.

Ladera Ranch is a master-planned community and census-designated place located in south Orange County, California, just outside the city limits of Mission Viejo.

The Roger Y. Williams House (also known as the Swanner House) is a home in San Juan Capistrano, California. Built in 1923, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. The listing included two contributing buildings and a contributing structure, plus agricultural fields.The property includes a two-story Craftsman house, a matching watertower and a matching garage, all built in 1923.

JSerra Catholic High School is a private coeducational Catholic high school located in San Juan Capistrano, California. Named after Saint Junípero Serra, the school was founded by parents in 2003 and is an independent school sanctioned by the Diocese of Orange. Total enrollment as of 2015 was 1,225. The school is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. In 2006, 2007, and 2008, the school was named one of the top 50 Catholic high schools in the United States by the Catholic High School Honor Roll of the Cardinal Newman Society.

Putuidem (Acjachemen: "belly" or "the navel"), alternative spelling Putiidhem or Putuidhem, was a large native village of the Acjachemen people, also known as Juaneño since their relocation to Mission San Juan Capistrano. The site was a mother village, the primary settlement of the tribe that spawned other villages.It was situated in what is currently San Juan Capistrano, California just off Interstate 5, about a mile north of the mission. It is now buried underneath the sports field and performing arts center of Junipero Serra Catholic High School, which began construction with approval from the city in 2003 after many attempts to preserve the site.In 2021, the Putuidem Village Park was opened in the city to commemorate the village.

Oso Creek is an approximately 13.5-mile (21.7 km) tributary of Arroyo Trabuco in southern Orange County in the U.S. state of California. Draining about 20 square miles (52 km2) in a region north of the San Joaquin Hills and south of the Santa Ana Mountains, the creek is Trabuco Creek's largest tributary, and is part of the San Juan Creek drainage basin. Beginning in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains near the city of Mission Viejo, the creek is dammed twice to form Upper Oso Reservoir and Lake Mission Viejo. The creek is channelized and polluted along much of its length. "Oso", meaning bear in the Spanish language, was likely the name given to the creek by Spanish conquistadors. Up to the 1970s, the Oso Creek watershed was mostly undeveloped and the creek ephemeral. The watershed lies close to two major wilderness areas - Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park to the southwest and O'Neill Regional Park to the west, on Trabuco Creek - but has no major parks within its boundaries. Interstate 5 parallels the creek for over half of its length.

Mission Viejo ( vee-AY-hoh; corruption of Misión Vieja, Spanish for "Old Mission") is a commuter city in the Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California, United States. Mission Viejo is considered one of the largest master-planned communities ever built under a single project in the United States and is rivaled only by Highlands Ranch, Colorado in size. Its population as of 2020 was 93,653.Mission Viejo is suburban in nature and culture, and consists of residential properties, offices and businesses. The city is noted for its tree-lined neighborhoods, receiving recognition from the National Arbor Day Foundation. The city's name is a reference to Rancho Mission Viejo, a large Spanish land grant from which the community was founded.