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is a town in Riverside County, California. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 46,600. The city is named in honor of Fred T. Perris, chief engineer of the California Southern Railroad; the California Southern was built through the future town site in 1882 to build a rail connection between the present day cities of Barstow and San Diego. Due to a land title dispute at Pincate, most of its citizens moved two miles north on the railroad and established Perris in 1885. The city was incorporated in 1911.
Perris now incorporates Pinacate Station which is the home of the Orange Empire Railway Museum (OERM, a.k.a "the trolley museum") - the largest operating museum of its kind on the West Coast.
On March 20, 2007, Perris was featured on ABC's Nightline news show during its "Realty Check" segment. The story dealt with the rising trend of home foreclosures in Riverside County, and Perris was referred to as the "epicenter". The story then dealt primarily with the city of Perris.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 31.5 square miles (81.6 km²), of which, 31.4 square miles (81.2 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.3 km²) of it (0.41%) is water.