Turtle Rock is a neighborhood in the south part of Irvine,

Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...

, near

Concordia University, Irvine Concordia University Irvine is a private Lutheran university in Irvine, California, United States. It was established in 1976 to provide a Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod college to serve the Pacific Southwest and provide training for pastors, ...

and the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

. It is bounded to the north by University Drive and Mason Regional Park, to the east by the Strawberry Farms Golf Club and Ridgeline Drive, to the south by Shady Canyon Drive, and to the west by

Culver Drive Culver Drive is a major arterial road in Irvine, Orange County, California, running approximately from southwest to northeast. Its southwest end is at its junction with Anteater Drive and Shady Canyon Drive, at the meeting point of the Turtle Ro ...

. Turtle Rock is one of the five "villages" originally forming Irvine; its 1967 founding is commemorated by a sculpture of a turtle in Turtle Rock Community Park, at the corner of Turtle Rock and Sunnyhill Drives. A two-lane internal loop road, Turtle Rock Drive, encircles the village and carries traffic between housing developments and the city's main streets. Geographically, Turtle Rock lies in the

San Joaquin Hills The San Joaquin Hills are a low mountain range of the Peninsular Ranges System, located in coastal Orange County, California. They extend in a northwest–southeast direction, starting in the northwest in Newport Beach at the southern edge of t ...

. The tallest point is a hill called "Sunset Point". Originally a nameless point, it was referenced as a part of Chaparral Park. It is often referred to as "Suicide Hill" online, due to the usage of the hill's steepest slope to perform the "Suicide" exercise routine. In 2021, the City Of Irvine conducted surveys and consulted with indigenous leaders, before officially naming the hill "Sunset Point". The highest point of Sunset Point is 161m tall. A lower peak to the north, also within the neighborhood, is called French Hill, with a peak of 128 meters. While it is not entirely clear where the name "Turtle Rock" comes from, there is a rocky outcropping on Rockview Drive at the northern end of the neighborhood () that is now maintained as part of an association park. This rock has the shape of the front of a turtle's carapace, and is sacred to the

Gabrieleño The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people prefer Kizh as an endonym that, they argue, is more historically ...

Native Americans. It is often locally considered to be the origin of the name "Turtle Rock". Schools within Turtle Rock include

Turtle Rock Preschool Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tur ...

, Turtle Rock Elementary School, Bonita Canyon Elementary School, University High School, and Concordia University. Planning and housing issues within Turtle Rock have been discussed regularly in Southern California newspapers. Henry Irving uses Turtle Rock as one of several test cases for analysis of urban communication.

References

{{Irvine, California Villages of Irvine, California San Joaquin Hills