Turtle Rock is a neighborhood in the south part of

Irvine Irvine may refer to: Places On Earth Antarctica *Irvine Glacier * Mount Irvine (Antarctica) Australia * Irvine Island * Mount Irvine, New South Wales Canada * Irvine, Alberta * Irvine Inlet, Nunavut Scotland *Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotlan ...

Orange County, California Orange County (officially the County of Orange; often initialized O.C.) is a county (United States), county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population ...

, near

Concordia University, Irvine Concordia University Irvine is a private university, private Lutheranism, 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 a ...

and the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

. 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 ...

. 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, California, Newport Beac ...

. 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 A carapace is a dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tortoises, the unde ...

, and is sacred to the

Gabrieleño The Kizh or Kit’c ( ) are an Indigenous people of California, the historically and ethnographically documented lineal descendants of the Mission Indians of San Gabriel. They belong to a group commonly known by the Spanish name Gabrieleño. Th ...

Native Americans. It is often locally considered to be the origin of the name "Turtle Rock". Schools within Turtle Rock include Turtle Rock Preschool, Turtle Rock Elementary School, Bonita Canyon Elementary School, University High School, and

Concordia University Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...

. 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.

Parks

Turtle Rock features two community parks Turtle Rock Community Park and Chapparral Park. Turtle Rock Community Park sits in the intersection of Turtle Rock Drive and Sunnyhill Drive. Chapparral Park is Parrell to Bonita Canyon Elementary School and is a small open area with play structures and a small, paved trail.

In popular culture

* In the 2003 video game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, one of the multiplayer maps is named Turtle Rock. This is because

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Irvine, California, and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard. Originally founded in 1991, the company is best known for producing the h ...

, the developer of the game, is headquartered near Turtle Rock.

References

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