Looking for an Irvine villages list map? Start here: a "village" is the everyday name for one of the City of Irvine's numbered planning areas, such as 15 Woodbridge, 21 Turtle Rock, 40 Cypress Village or 51 Great Park. The idea goes back to a master plan drawn up around 1960. Not every planning area is a place where people live.
Ask someone in Irvine where they live and they will usually say "Woodbridge" or "Turtle Rock," not a street, a neighborhood or a ZIP code. To newcomers it can sound like a private code. It isn't, though the word "village" covers more ground than most people realize. This guide explains what the word means in city records, where it came from, and how to find the official boundary for your own address.
The short answer: villages are planning areas
The City of Irvine splits the city into numbered planning areas and uses them in its General Plan, zoning and mapping. The City's GIS parcel layer stores a planning area number for every parcel, alongside its PIN, assessor's parcel number, tract and lot. Each number has a name in a coded list: 15 is Woodbridge, 21 is Turtle Rock, 40 is Cypress Village, 51 is Great Park.
When residents call a planning area a "village," they are using the shorthand the city was built on. The numbering has a few quirks. Codes 7 and 37 are missing from the city's list, nothing appears between 40 and 50, and two separate codes (30 and 51) are both named Great Park. That is why this guide gives no total count: going by the number of the highest code would get it wrong.
Where the village idea came from
The City's History of the City page says that in 1959 the University of California asked The Irvine Company for 1,000 acres for a new campus. Architect William Pereira "and Irvine Company planners drew up master plans for a city of 50,000 people surrounding the university." The Irvine Company's own history timeline says Pereira was commissioned in 1960 and that the company sold the 1,000 acres to the University of California for $1 to build UC Irvine.
The Irvine Company describes the original vision in an article titled "At 50, new City of Irvine is evergreen": "Irvine's most distinctive characteristic would be self-contained residential 'villages' linked by forested corridors." According to that account, residents would be within a 10-minute walk along a greenbelt of an elementary school and playground, and no more than a 15-minute walk from a shopping center with a market. Keep in mind that this is the developer describing its own plan.
Building moved quickly. The Irvine Company timeline lists its first residential village as the 619-acre Village of Eastbluff near Upper Newport Bay, introduced in 1964. Eastbluff does not appear in the City of Irvine's planning-area list, which is a useful reminder that the Irvine Company's ranch and the City of Irvine are not the same thing. In a Voice of OC opinion piece, longtime resident and author Stockstill writes that the Irvine Company hired Pereira to master plan the whole Irvine Ranch, and that the city wrote its own general plan after it incorporated in December 1971.
According to the City's history page, "the villages of Turtle Rock, University Park, Culverdale, the Ranch and Walnut were completed by 1970." The City's About Irvine page gives the incorporation date as December 28, 1971, and says Irvine "is one of the nation's largest planned urban communities and encompasses more than 65 square miles." The history page adds that residents voted to incorporate a city "substantially larger" than Pereira's original plan. Demand kept growing: the Irvine Company timeline says Woodbridge's first home sales in 1976 drew a lottery of 10,000 would-be buyers for 350 homes.
What makes a village a village
The Irvine Company sets out its village principles on its Good Planning site. These are the developer's design goals, not city law, but they explain why Irvine neighborhoods look the way they do:
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Identity: "The Irvine Ranch is made up of residential villages, each of which has its own unique identity."
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Schools: on elementary schools, "Almost every village has one," while "Secondary schools are larger and often shared by villages."
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Parks: "Small parks help define neighborhoods, while community parks identify villages."
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Shopping: "Neighborhood centers are the smallest and are built as an integral part of each village."
The site's Live page adds that "Each village features smaller, organized neighborhoods, most with a local park as its focus," and that "On- and off-street trails link neighborhoods, parks, schools and shopping centers within each village." If you have noticed that you can walk from your cul-de-sac to a school and a grocery store without crossing a major arterial, that is the design doing its job.
Not every planning area is a place to live
This is where the everyday "village" shorthand stops working. The city's planning-area list also includes:
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Business districts: several Irvine Spectrum areas (numbered 13, 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35) and the Irvine Business Complex (36).
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Open space and natural areas: San Joaquin Marsh (23), Bommer Canyon (28) and Quail Hill - Open Space (16).
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University land: UCI - North Campus (29) and University of California, Irvine (50).
Nobody says they "live in the Irvine Business Complex village," yet in city data it has a number just like Woodbridge does. Think of "planning area" as the official, all-inclusive term, and "village" as the name people use for the residential ones.
Village, neighborhood, HOA, council district, school map: five different lines
A common mix-up is to assume that your village, your HOA, your council district and your school attendance area all follow the same line. They don't. The City's GIS layer list keeps City Boundary, Council Districts, Schools, Parks, Parcel, Zoning, General Plan and HOA as separate layers. Its PDF map gallery also has its own HOA map and School District map, apart from the Planning Area map.
In practice that means a few things. A homeowners association's private pools and facilities are not the same as the public parks shown on the city's Parks layer. Your council district comes from a different map than your village. School boundaries need their own lookup too.
Neighborhood names add one more layer. The City's history page lists Culverdale and the Ranch among the early villages, but neither name appears in the current planning-area code list. The Wikipedia article on Irvine, a secondary source, lists dozens of "villages," including Deerfield, Northpark, Stonegate and Windwood, which are not planning-area names in city data. Those names are real and widely used. They just don't match the city's numbered boundaries.
How to find your village
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Open the City's PDF map gallery. The City of Irvine GIS PDF Maps page lists a Planning Area map and a "PA with Aerial" version, along with Land Use, Zoning, HOA, School District and Bikeway maps.
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Go to your planning area's address map. The same page offers "PA Address Maps," described as "Address maps of each planning area in Irvine." Look for your street there.
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Check the tract map if you need more detail. "PA Tract Maps" are "Tract maps of each planning area in Irvine," which helps if you know your tract number from closing or HOA documents.
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Use the parcel data for a definitive answer. Every parcel in the City's parcel layer carries a planning-area number, so the parcel record is the authoritative tie between your property and its planning area.
Confirming a boundary officially
For anything with real consequences, such as a home purchase, a development question or a comment letter, go to the General Plan. The City's Current General Plan page says "The City's current General Plan was adopted by City Council on August 13, 2024." That page links to the Land Use Map and Land Use Element Tables A-1, A-1-1 and A-2, which show planned intensity and acreage "by City of Irvine Planning Area."
Some planning areas also have their own city page with a written boundary. For example, the City's Planning Area 51 page describes the Great Park Neighborhoods as generally bounded by Irvine Boulevard and Portola Parkway to the north, SR-133 to the west, Irvine Spectrum (Planning Area 35) to the east, and I-5 to the south. If you live near one of those edges, a description like that, checked against the map, settles the question.
The map is still changing: proposed Oak Park (Planning Area 52)
Irvine's list of villages isn't fixed. According to the City's Proposed Oak Park (Planning Area 52) page, the Irvine Company has filed General Plan amendment, zone change and development agreement applications to create "a new 281-acre planning area" inside Planning Area 12 (Oak Creek). The proposal includes "up to 2,400 dwelling units," a public nature park, trails, neighborhood parks and a future elementary school site.
The applications are under review. The City is preparing a Subsequent EIR to the 2045 General Plan EIR, issued a Notice of Preparation on July 6, 2026, and held a public scoping meeting on July 20, 2026. Hoodline reported on September 5, 2026 that 2,400 units is "down from the roughly 3,100 residences the developer originally floated for the site."
One point is easy to misread. On April 14, 2026, the City Council amended the Zoning Ordinance to create an optional path for a public nature park and trail system on part of Oak Creek Golf Course. The City's page states that "The amendment does not approve any specific development project or change the site's General Plan or zoning designations." Oak Park has not been approved. It is a proposed planning area, and the City's project page is the place to follow it.
Quick reference: Irvine planning areas in City GIS data
These are the planning-area numbers and names in the City of Irvine's GIS parcel layer code list, as recorded in our research. Names are given as the city writes them. Where the type is labeled, the label reflects what is described above. For what each remaining area contains, check the General Plan Land Use Map.
Business districts
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13 Irvine Spectrum 4
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31 Irvine Spectrum 6
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32 Irvine Spectrum 3
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33 Irvine Spectrum Center
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34 Irvine Spectrum 5
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35 Irvine Spectrum 2
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36 Irvine Business Complex
Open space and natural areas
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16 Quail Hill - Open Space
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23 San Joaquin Marsh
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28 Bommer Canyon
University of California, Irvine
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29 UCI - North Campus
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50 University Of California, Irvine
All other planning areas (this group includes the residential villages, such as Woodbridge, Turtle Rock, University Park, Walnut, Cypress Village and the Great Park Neighborhoods)
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1 Orchard Hills
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2 Gateway Village
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3 Limestone Canyon
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4 Lower Peters Canyon
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5 Northwood Point
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6 Portola Springs
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8 Northwood
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9 Woodbury
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10 Walnut
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11 El Camino Real
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12 Oakcreek
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14 West Park
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15 Woodbridge
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17 Quail Hill
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18 Laguna Altura
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19 Rancho San Joaquin
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20 University Park
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21 Turtle Rock
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22 Shady Canyon
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24 University Town Center
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25 University Research Center
Related reading
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Irvine Neighborhood Parks Walking Guide: How to Find Quiet Parks Without a Car
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The Best Time to Visit Great Park Irvine: Weekday or Weekend?