Interactive Storytelling with the 2025 Orange County Equity Profile
Curious about how interactive data can enrich our understanding of community trends? Check out our recently updated data profile for Orange County that makes exploring local data more accessible and engaging!
Built in partnership with Orange County Grantmakers, the 2025 Orange County Equity Profile interactively highlights demographic trends and indicators of equitable growth with concrete data to demonstrate why ensuring success for all community members is crucial for Orange County’s future. The interactive maps and charts allow users to explore the data in a dynamic and engaging way, making it easier to grasp trends and patterns. Users can use filters, sort, and compare data based on various characteristics like race/ethnicity and nativity, enabling them to dive deeper into examining existing disparities.
Exploring Orange County’s Population Changes Over Decades
Our Orange County Equity Profile includes interactive maps where readers can see more detailed data (e.g. by census tract or neighborhood). In some cases, we include a dynamic slider which not only shows demographic changes from 1980 to 2020—it lets you visually connect historical trends with today’s realities by showing the concentrations of race/ethnicity. Going beyond explaining data to seeing data through visual comparisons across space and time is a central element to data storytelling.
Using the map slider, we can see that between 1980 and 2022, Orange County’s population, which increased by 64 percent (or 1.2 million people), became much more racially and ethnically diverse. From 1980, Orange County’s population went from 78 percent white to majority people of coloraround 2004. Today, about 3.2 million people live in Orange County and no racial or ethnic group comprises a majority nor is any group projected to be a majority in the near future.
Customized Data Views Reveal Orange County’s Diversity
New to this report are also interactive charts that include intuitive filters that drill down into specific data points—making it easy to find the data points and insights that matter most to users
The Ancestry by Race/Ethnicity chart above provides data views that show the ethnically diverse makeup of the County ordered by total population. Users can see that Orange County is home to very ethnically diverse Asian American and Pacific Islander, Black, Latino, and Middle Eastern and North African communities. Among Black residents reporting ancestry, many are Ethiopian or Eritrean, followed by Nigerian, Somalian, and Jamaican, while among Middle Eastern and North African communities, many are Iranian, followed by Egyptian, Lebanese, Armenian, and Arab.
Data Tools Highlight Deeper Equity Insights
We incorporated popups in our charts and maps throughout the report to show additional, detailed information through a simple hover.
The Percent Gain in GDP with Racial Equity in Income ranked chart highlights the economic benefits of equity for everyone, enhancing health, community strength, and economic growth. Our analysis showed that Orange County’s economy could have been $97.4 billion stronger in 2022 if racial income gaps had been closed. If the county achieved racial equity in incomes, people of color would see their average annual incomes increase by over $32,000—a 67 percent gain. The ranking chart below reveals that Orange County would see a substantial gain in GDP compared to other counties across the nation. Orange County would have the 48th highest gain in GDP with racial equity among the 389 largest counties in the U.S.
Users who want to examine what other counties we are comparing against can hover through the chart, which displays popups that show where counties rank in potential gains in GDP with racial equity.
Access and share data to continue the conversation on equity
The 2025 Orange County Equity Profile is a tool to help better understand issues of equity facing the county and can be used to ground dialogue, guide strategy, and gauge progress.
For this reason, we incorporated a downloading feature for each interactive chart. With a simple click, you can now download the exact and entire data behind each chart in CSV format, promoting transparency, collaborative research, and data access. By clicking on the tool on the left side, below the chart’s accompanying text, you can also share interactive charts on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Ready to explore findings to apply in your daily work? Dive into the 2025 Orange County Equity Profile to embark on deeper conversations on equity like never before with the support of interactive data. Share your insights and let us know which data point stuck out to you most!