Orinda is a somewhat small city located in the state of California. With a population of 17,446 people and five constituent neighborhoods, Orinda is the 332nd largest community in California.

Orinda is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 94.92% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Orinda is a city of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Orinda who work in management occupations (19.97%), sales jobs (14.70%), and business and financial occupations (10.81%).

Of important note, Orinda is also a city of artists. Orinda has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Orinda's character.

Also of interest is that Orinda has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 9.58% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

Orinda, while not large, also appears to be attractive to some younger, educated professionals, who help shape the character of the city.

In addition to being popular with young singles, Orinda is also home to many people who can be described as "urban sophisticates." While both of these categories describe educated professionals, urban sophisticates are quite a different demographic. Urban sophisticates are people who are both educated and wealthy, and thus tend to be older, richer, and more established than young professionals. "Urban sophisticates" is not just about being educated and well-off financially: it is a point of view and state of mind, one that you might call 'urbaneness.' But such people can and do regularly live in small towns, suburbs and rural areas, as well as in big cities. They read, support the arts and high-end shops, and love travel.

Because of many things, Orinda is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Orinda really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Orinda perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic night life, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

One downside of living in Orinda, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 30.44 minutes every day commuting to work.

Orinda is a small city, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.

Orinda Information and Demographics

If knowledge is power, Orinda is a pretty powerful place. 73.91% of the adults in Orinda have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 14.96% for all cities and towns.

The per capita income in Orinda in 2000 was $65,428, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $261,712 for a family of four. However, Orinda contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Orinda is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Orinda home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Orinda is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Orinda include English, German, Irish, Italian, Scottish, European, Swedish, French, Russian, and Norwegian.

The most common language spoken in Orinda is English. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and Spanish.