Chino's surroundings have long been a center of agriculture and dairy farming, providing milk products in Southern California and much of the southwestern United States.

[8] The land grant on which the town was founded was called Rancho Santa Ana del Chino.

Santa Ana is Spanish for Saint Anne, but the exact meaning of "Chino" has been explained in different ways.

[10] The Tongva had a settlement called Wapijangna in the Santa Ana River watershed.

Some twenty years later, Mexican governor of Alta California Juan Bautista Alvarado granted Rancho Santa Ana del Chino to Antonio Maria Lugo of the Lugo family.

Two years later, his successor, Governor Micheltorena, granted an additional three leagues to Lugo's son-in-law Isaac Williams, who took charge of the rancho.

Williams kept large quantities of horses and cattle, which attracted the envy of raiding Native Americans as well as unscrupulous whites.

One of the latter was James Beckwourth, who, in 1840, posed as an otter hunter and stayed at Rancho Chino to determine the location of the area's animals, which he then reported to Walkara, the Ute mastermind of the raids.

[11] The battle ended prior to the arrival of the Mormon Battalion, dispatched on behalf of the United States, who instead labored in the rancho's agricultural harvest and constructed a grist mill.

During the California Gold Rush, the rancho was a popular stopover for travelers, and in the mining fury, coal was discovered there.

In 1850, California was admitted to the union, and the process of separating privately held lands from the public domain began.

The Chino Valley, located at the foot of an alluvial plain with fertile topsoil reaching depths of 4 feet (1.2 m), was an agricultural mecca from the 1890s up through the mid-20th century.

1960s movies included Bus Riley's Back in Town starring Ann-Margret and Michael Parks;[13] The Stripper, with Joanne Woodward; and the mid-1960s TV series Twelve O'Clock High, refashioning Chino's rural airport into a British airfield with quonset huts among farm fields.

[15] The measure faced considerable opposition from city residents, despite support from the Chino Chamber of Commerce and school district.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 29.7 square miles (77 km2).

According to the 2010 United States Census, Chino had a median household income of $71,671, with 9.6% of the population living below the federal poverty line.

[3] The city's elections, which are plurality, are held on a Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even-numbered years.

Chino is included in the 35th and 39th congressional districts,[33] which are represented by Norma Torres (D–Pomona) and Mark Takano (D–Riverside), respectively.