Anaheim noise map: where the city is loudest

Anaheim’s distinction isn’t its overall ranking — it’s the severity. Among large US cities, few have a bigger share of residents above 70 dB, the level federal agencies treat as a serious threshold (only smaller Orange County neighbors like Orange and Norwalk edge it out). The geometry explains it: I-5 cuts diagonally through the city’s heart, SR-91 runs the full east–west width, and SR-57 closes the triangle, with some of Orange County’s densest apartment stock built directly along the corridors.

The map has one famous omission. Disneyland’s nightly fireworks are a defining feature of Anaheim’s actual soundscape — audible across a swath of the city nearly every evening — but the federal model counts only road, rail and aviation, so they don’t register a single decibel here. Anaheim is a clean illustration of what transportation-noise data measures, and what it doesn’t.

Anaheim noise: the specifics

• Among the highest severe-exposure shares of any large US city: 4.2% of residents above 70 dB — topped only by smaller Orange County neighbors.
• Three freeways (I-5, SR-91, SR-57) form a lattice through the city, with dense apartment housing along the corridors.
• Disneyland’s nightly fireworks — a real fixture of local noise — are invisible to the federal model, which counts only transportation sources.
• 10.7% of residents above 60 dB ranks #10 of 297 US cities — see the full measured ranking.