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Santiago Creek is a major watercourse in Orange County in the U.S. state of California. About long, it drains most of the northern Santa Ana Mountains and is a tributary to the Santa Ana River. It is one of the longest watercourses entirely within the county.〔San Juan Creek is approximately the same length, and the Santa Ana River is not entirely within Orange County.〕 The creek shares its name with Santiago Peak, at the highest point in Orange County, on whose slopes its headwaters rise. The Santiago Creek watershed covers about in northern Orange County. The upper part of the creek is free-flowing, while the lower section is urbanized and includes parts of the cities of Tustin, Orange, and Santa Ana. Below the Villa Park Dam the creek is mostly channelized and flows only during heavy winter storms. Historically the Santiago Creek provided water for the Tongva people, whose territory extended over much of northern present-day Orange County and into the Los Angeles Basin. Native Americans have inhabited the Santiago Creek and Santa Ana River watershed for up to 12,000 years. The creek was named by the Spanish Gaspar de Portolá expedition of 1769, which crossed the Santa Ana River near where it meets the Santiago Creek.〔 〕 In the 1870s there was a short-lived silver boom along the tributary Silverado Creek. In 1929 the Santiago Dam was built to form Irvine Lake, to supply irrigation water. Pipelines from Irvine Lake still contribute a small amount of water to the municipality of Villa Park. ==Course== Santiago Creek rises in the Cleveland National Forest, between Santiago Peak and Modjeska Peak, which together form the prominent Saddleback of the Santa Ana Mountains. The creek runs south-southwest toward Portola Hills before turning northwest. Once out of the national forest it passes through the town of Modjeska and meets the first major tributary, Harding Canyon Creek, from the right. Downstream, it receives Baker and Silverado creeks, both from the right. Past the first Santiago Canyon Road crossing, the gorge widens to a broad alluvial plain, where the valley walls pull away and decrease in height. The creek's perennial surface flows are limited to this upper stretch; below here the water flows underground except during the wet season of winter and early spring. The creek then empties into Irvine Lake, which is also fed by Limestone Canyon, a left-bank tributary. The reservoir is formed by the Santiago Dam, located at its north end.〔〔 Irvine Lake provides water to Villa Park and Orange via a pipeline and flume to Peters Canyon Reservoir. Because the flume diverts the creek's entire flow, the creek below the dam is dry except during floods.〔 Below the dam the dry riverbed meets Fremont Canyon, a right bank tributary, and crosses underneath California State Route 241. It then flows northwest, bisecting Irvine Regional Park, and receives Weir Canyon Creek from the right. Near Villa Park, the Villa Park Dam forms a flood control reservoir to control spills from Irvine Lake. Below Villa Park, the creek is confined to a flood control channel for the remaining of its course.〔〔 Flowing roughly southwest between the cities of Orange and Santa Ana, it receives Handy Creek from the left, then crosses under California State Route 55 and 22, through Hart Memorial Park and Santiago Creek Park. Because the creek is dry most of the year, portions of the river bed are used as parking lots when conditions permit. The creek then crosses under Interstate 5 and continues west toward the Santa Ana River. Its confluence is on the river's left bank, inside the Riverview Golf Course. About below the confluence with Santiago Creek, the Santa Ana River enters the Pacific Ocean at Huntington Beach.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Santiago Creek」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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