thumb|right|Downtown Stanton, 1913
Stanton is a city in northern Orange County, California, United States, within the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The population was 37,962 at the 2020 United States census. The city was incorporated in 1956 and operates under the council–manager form of government, providing a full range of municipal services. Stanton is bounded by Cypress on the west, Anaheim on the north and east, and Garden Grove on the east and south.
History
During the Spanish colonial period, northern Orange County along with much of the LA Basin had been granted to Manuel Nieto in 1784 under the Rancho Los Nietos. After Nietos' death, his heirs partitioned the land into five smaller ranchos under Mexican governance. The current boundaries of the city roughly lies over two of five descending ranchos of Rancho Los Alamitos and Rancho Los Coyotes. started service on the Santa Ana Line. It ran along an almost perfectly straight line between Watts and Santa Ana. Access to transportation allowed the population of the rural area to grow. This area is now Stanton and West Anaheim.
The original name recorded by the Railway was Benedict. In 1911, the name was changed to Stanton after Philip A. Stanton, a Republican assemblyman for Los Angeles from 1903 to 1909, who was recorded to have assisted the formation of the territory.
In 1908, the privately owned Pacific Electric Railway leased the Santa Ana Line and took over the service, extending its regional light-rail system. Passenger service to Santa Ana was discontinued in 1950, shortly after the railway was taken over by the Metropolitan Transportation Agency. Today, the easement still is owned by the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA). It crosses the intersections of Beach Boulevard/Pacific Street and Cerritos Avenue/Western Avenue.
The first City of Stanton was incorporated in 1911 and was then the largest city in Orange County by area. The main motivation for incorporation was the City of Anaheim's plan to build a "sewage farm" to the west of their city. Former Speaker of the California State Assembly Phillip Ackley Stanton assisted in the incorporation and the city was named Stanton in his honor. In 1924, the residents voted to dis-incorporate to avoid the cost of building roads in the city.
Geography
Stanton is directly bordered by Anaheim to the north and Cypress to the west. A southern salient of the city largely bisects the city of Garden Grove from its West Garden Grove neighborhood, making the city as a whole a neighbor of Stanton to the east, south, and west.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land.