The term "Coto de Caza" means "Preserve of the Hunt" in both Spanish and Portuguese Spanish ranchers enjoyed hunting deer, doves, pheasants and small game throughout the Plano Trabuco area in the late 1800’s. Western movies were filmed in the Coto de Caza area by producer John Ford in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Western actors John Wayne, Bruce Cabot, and Robert Stack used the area for trap and skeet shooting in the 1950’s.The terms Coto de Caza and Trabuco Canyon are terms to describe the same geographical area.

Coto de Caza is the largest guard-gated private community in Orange County, California. The population at the 2000 census was 13,057 and has grown to approximately 18,600 in 2010. Coto de Caza is neither a city nor a township but is an unincorporated area within the sphere of influence of the City of Rancho Santa Margarita to which it is adjacent.

Coto de Caza is a suburban planned community of about 6,000 homes, and one of Orange County 's oldest and most expensive master planned communities. A jointly owned project of Chevron and Arvida corporations initiated development in 1964. In 2010 there are still a very few undeveloped lots available for purchase. Within the community of Coto de Caza there are two 18-hole Robert Trent Jones Jr. designed golf courses which are part of the Coto De Caza Golf & Racquet Club, and adjacent Spa & Sports Club building Sports Club, Swimming Club and ten tennis courts.

Yet another country club is called the Coto Valley Country Club is located in the residential area known as "the Village of Coto de Caza ” and adjacent to the former Vic Braden tennis club. Actress Raquel Welch’s television special was filmed there in 1971. This club includes the huge Coto de Caza Equestrian Center which was the site of the 1984 Olympics equestrian competitions and performance arenas. Coto de Caza currently has stalls for 400 horses and more than forty miles of equestrian trails. In 2009 The Orange County Polo Club was built Coto de Caza and holds weekly competitions for several teams of equestrian Polo events.

The community of Coto de Caza was the original setting of the reality-based television show The Real Housewives of Orange County on Bravo.

Coto de Caza contains very few commercial enterprises, The Coto de Caza Golf and Racquet Club, The Coto Valley Country Club, The Coto de Caza General Store, The Lodge at Coto de Caza and the Coto de Caza News, the weekly newspaper for the area. Residents shop two minutes away in Rancho Santa Margarita, ten minutes away in Mission Viejo, or seven minutes away in Ladera Ranch. Coto de Caza is twenty minutes from John Wayne Airport and South Coast Plaza .

Most Coto de Caza students in reside in the Capistrano Unified School District and attend Wagon Wheel Elementary, Tijeras Creek Elementary, Las Flores Middle School, Tesoro High School, and Santa Margarita Catholic High School, St. Johns Episcopal School, and Junipero Serra Catholic Elementary School (not part of Capistrano Unified). There are no public schools inside the community of Coto de Caza. The privately operated Merryhill elementary school closed in 2008 .Single family residences are priced from a low of one million to grand estates approaching twenty nine million with an average sales price of $2.2 million. Coto de Caza is twenty minutes from the Interstate 5 freeway and five minutes from the 241 toll road which connects to Irvine and Riverside County .