Orange

The orange, also called the sweet orange to distinguish it from the bitter orange, is the fruit of a citrus tree, botanically a hybrid between the pomelo and the mandarin orange whose full genome has been sequenced. It originated in a region spanning southern China, northeast India and Myanmar, with the earliest mention of the sweet orange appearing in Chinese literature in 314 BC, and orange trees are now widely grown in tropical and subtropical areas for their sweet fruit, which is eaten fresh or processed for its juice or fragrant peel. In 2024, world production reached 67 million tonnes.