The Key Peninsula ("The KP" or "The Key" to some locals) is a finger of land in
Puget Sound
Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...
,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. It is approximately long
[
] and extends south from the
Kitsap Peninsula
The Kitsap Peninsula () lies west of Seattle across Puget Sound, in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. Hood Canal separates the peninsula from the Olympic Peninsula on its west side. The peninsula, a.k.a. "Kitsap", encompasses all of Kit ...
. It is part of
Pierce County, Washington. Some of its towns include:
Wauna,
Key Center,
Vaughn,
Home,
Lakebay, and
Longbranch. Its name is derived from the key-like shape of the peninsula.
The Key Peninsula is in the
Peninsula School District
The Peninsula School District is the main school district for the city of Gig Harbor, Washington, USA and the unincorporated areas around Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula. These areas include Artondale, Arletta, Rosedale, Purdy, Wollochet, ...
; Elementary school is provided by a number of small schools up and down the peninsula while middle school is provided by Key Peninsula Middle School. High school age children attend
Peninsula High School (PHS) on the Gig Harbor Peninsula in
Purdy.
The Key Peninsula is home to two
State Parks
State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...
:
Penrose Point State Park and
Joemma Beach State Park.
From the 1870s to the 1920s, transportation needs for communities on the western side of the Key Peninsula along Case Inlet were once served by a
small flotilla of steamboats.
[Findlay, Jean Cammon and Paterson, Robin, ''Mosquito Fleet of Southern Puget Sound'', (2008) Arcadia Publishing , at pages 10-11, 18, 27 and 35.]
The local newspaper is the monthly community nonprofit Key Peninsula News, founded in 1974 and based in
Vaughn: http://www.keypennews.com.
More information can be found at the Key Peninsula Historical Societ
and in "Early Days of the Key Peninsula" by R.T. Arledge and "The Woodpecker Menace" by Ted Olinger.
References
External links
Key Peninsula News
{{Coord, 47, 17, 29, N, 122, 46, 31, W, display=title
Peninsulas of Washington (state)
Landforms of Pierce County, Washington
Seattle metropolitan area
Landforms of Puget Sound