Overview
About El Cajon
El Cajon covers 537.8 acres and holds 1,481 addresses on 1,255 parcels, at a median lot of 0.21 acres. It fills 95.9 percent of its own convex hull, tied with Via Lomas De Yorba for the most compact shape of the twenty-seven residential zones the city draws. Zoning runs 122.5 acres Residential Urban, 121.6 acres Residential Estate, 100.6 acres Residential Suburban, 24 acres Public and Semi-Public and 19.2 acres Commercial Office. Sixty-nine named streets carry 14.98 miles of centerline, only 35 segments of it private. The El Cajon trail runs 1.2 miles of the 4.08 miles of trail inside the boundary, and the city's point layer marks two horse crossing signals along the network.
The Rose Drive Elementary campus stands here on 10.2 acres at 4700 Rose Drive with the Rose Drive tennis courts beside it, and Friends Christian School occupies a further 12.8 acres at 4231 Rose Drive. The 2025 fire hazard severity layer rates no part of this boundary at any level. What runs under it is oil: the state field boundary layer places 348.3 acres inside the abandoned Yorba Linda field, 166 acres inside East Coyote and 23.5 inside Richfield, the city flags every one of the 1,481 addresses as sitting over a field boundary and 156 as sitting on or beside a recorded well, and 65 plugged wells remain on the state record inside the polygon.
View available homes in El CajonHistory
How El Cajon was built
El cajon is Spanish for the box or the drawer, and in ranch California it was the word for a canyon closed at one end. The name survives twice here, on El Cajon Avenue and on the El Cajon Trail, four miles of which run through this community. The land was part of the 13,328 acre Rancho Canon de Santa Ana that Mexican governor Jose Figueroa granted Bernardo Yorba in 1834, and Rose Drive Elementary, named for the street it stands on, sits on that same grant.
Two industries left their names on the map. The groves account for Citrus Circle, Orange Drive, Rose Drive, Rosebud Drive, Peach Tree Lane and Apple Orchard Drive, and the first lemon and orange groves were planted in 1910, with the Yorba Linda Citrus Association forming in 1912. Oil accounts for the rest of the ground: the city publishes 65 plugged wells inside the boundary, and the state's Yorba Linda and Coyote East fields run underneath it.
By the Numbers
El Cajon by the numbers
Lifestyle
The El Cajon lifestyle
Schools
Schools serving El Cajon
Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified serves El Cajon, and the assignment is unusually clean for this city. The attendance boundaries the city publishes place 536.7 of the 537.8 acres in the Rose Drive Elementary area, 537.2 acres in the Yorba Linda Middle area and 537.2 acres in the El Dorado High area, with only four tenths of an acre at the boundary edge falling into the Lakeview Elementary area. The Rose Drive campus itself stands inside this boundary at 4700 Rose Drive. Clipping the county school district layer to this polygon returns the whole 537.8 acres in Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified.
9-12 · 1,998 students
6-8 · 818 students
TK-5 · 372 students
TK-5 · 381 students
FAQs
Common questions about El Cajon
Which schools serve El Cajon?
Rose Drive Elementary, Yorba Linda Middle and El Dorado High, each covering essentially the whole polygon, with the Rose Drive campus inside the boundary at 4700 Rose Drive. Rose Drive enrolled 372 students on the 2024-25 federal count, Yorba Linda Middle 818 and El Dorado High 1,998.
How big is El Cajon?
The City of Yorba Linda draws it as one polygon of 537.8 acres. Its address layer records 1,481 addresses inside it and the parcel layer 1,255 parcels, at a median lot of 0.21 acres.
When was El Cajon built?
Mostly in the 1960s, and mostly before incorporation. Its main tract maps were recorded between September 1961 and April 1968 in unincorporated Orange County. The county assessor carries a year built on 1,077 of the 1,255 parcels, running 1912 to 1996, with 704 in the 1960s and 203 dated 1962.
Is there oil under El Cajon?
Under all of it. The state field boundary layer places 348.3 acres inside the abandoned Yorba Linda field, 166 acres inside East Coyote and 23.5 acres inside Richfield, and the city flags all 1,481 addresses as sitting over a field boundary. Sixty-five plugged wells remain on the state record inside the polygon.
What trails run through El Cajon?
The El Cajon trail runs 1.2 miles inside the boundary, part of 4.08 miles the city records here across twenty-three segments. The city's point layer marks fourteen trail entry points and two horse crossing signals along them.