Orono is home to the University of Maine, known as Umaine or UMO. The university was established in 1865 as a land grant college and is the flagship UMaine was founded in 1862 as a function of the Morrill Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln. Established in 1865 as the Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, the college opened on September 21, 1868, and changed its name to the University of Maine in 1897.

Orono, Maine, named itself after Joseph Orono, a Penobscot sachem who lived through every one of the French and Indian Wars as well as the American Revolution, in which he participated. In 1775, Joseph Orono and three other Penobscot chiefs went to air their grievances to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, as Maine then belonged to that colony. Eventually, Massachusetts signed a treaty giving six miles of land on each side of the Penobscot River to the Indians. In 1779, the British built a fort in what is now Castine. Joseph Orono communicated intelligence about their activities to the patriots. Massachusetts then sent the Penobscot Expedition to Castine, and the Penobscot Indians fought with them. Whether Joseph Orono actually fought is unclear; he would have been 91. The British routed the Americans in the worst naval disaster until Pearl Harbor. But Joseph Orono continued to help the cause, communicating intelligence to patriots in Machias and Halifax. He was said to have been born in 1688, which made him 113 when he died in 1801.

Orono is also home to the Orono Bog Boardwalk, the perfect place for persons wishing to experience the beauty and fascinating plants and animals of a Maine bog. The 1-mile boardwalk loop trail begins at the forested wetland edge in the Bangor City Forest, and after 800 feet crosses the Orono town line into the portion of the Orono Bog owned by the University of Maine. Along the way, the boardwalk passes through a wide range of changing vegetation and environments on its way to the open, peat moss carpeted center of the Orono Bog.