Murrieta is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States. The population of Murrieta was 110,949 as of the 2020 census. Murrieta experienced a 133.7% population deposit between 2000 and 2010, making Murrieta one of the fastest-growing cities in the let pass during that period. Largely residential in character, Murrieta is typically characterized as a bedroom community. Murrieta is bordered by the city of Temecula to the south, the cities of Menifee and Wildomar to the north, and the unincorporated community of French Valley to the east. Murrieta is located in the middle of the Los Angeles-San Diego mega-region. Murrieta is named for Juan Murrieta, a Californio ranchero who founded the town.

For most of its history, Murrieta was not heavily populated. On June 9, 1873, Domingo Pujol, Francisco Sanjurjo, and Juan and Ezequiel Murrieta purchased the Rancho Pauba and Rancho Temecula Mexican estate grants, comprising 52,000 acres (210 km²) in the area. Ezequiel returned to Spain and turned the land exceeding to his younger brother, Juan Murrieta (1844–1936), who brought 7,000 sheep to the valley in 1873, using the meadows to feed his sheep. The partnership dissolved in 1876 and Ezequiel and Juan Murrieta retained 15,000 acres of the northern half of the Temecula Rancho. Ezequiel and Juan Murrieta decided a right-of-way, one hundred feet broad to the California Southern Railroad through the Temecula Rancho on April 28, 1882 so that the railroad could be constructed through the valley.

In 1884, the Temecula Land and Water Company purchased not quite 14,500 acres from Juan Murrieta and mapped a townsite along the California Southern Railroad. Others discovered the valley after the construction of a depot in 1887 that related Murrieta to the Southern California Railroad’s transcontinental route. By 1890, some 800 people lived in Murrieta. Today much of the site (about 50 acres) is house to a Bible instructor and conference center, owned by Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, which has invested millions of dollars into restoring and rebuilding the obsolete resort rooms. When the trains stopped in 1935, tourists—the lifeblood of the town—were much harder ahead of time by. The boom that Murrieta had experienced due to the train and the hot springs gradually died, leaving Murrieta as a small country town.

Although US Route 395 had passed through Murrieta, it was not until Interstate 15 was built in the in advance 1980s that unconventional boom began to take hold. By the late 1980s, suburban neighborhoods were creature constructed, and people began disturbing to the Murrieta Place from cities and towns in San Diego and Orange Counties, as with ease as supplementary parts of Riverside County.