seaport
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...
city on the
West Coast of the United States
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...
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 ...
. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of Washington and the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...
region of North America. The
Seattle metropolitan area
The Seattle metropolitan area is an urban conglomeration in the U.S. state of Washington that comprises Seattle, its surrounding satellites and suburbs. It contains the three most populous counties in the state—King, Snohomish, and Pierce ...
's population is 4.02 million, making it the 15th-largest in the United States. Its growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 makes it one of the nation's fastest-growing large cities.
Seattle is situated on an
isthmus
An isthmus (; ; ) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea counterpart of an isthmus ...
between
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 ...
(an inlet of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost major city in the United States, located about south of the
Canadian border
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
. A major gateway for trade with
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...
, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling .
The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers.
Arthur A. Denny
Arthur Armstrong Denny (June 20, 1822 – January 9, 1899) was one of the founders of Seattle, Washington,, Special Collections, Washington State Historical Society (WSHS). Accessed online 8 March 2008. the acknowledged leader of the pioneer Den ...
and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the
Denny Party
The Denny Party is a group of American pioneers credited with founding Seattle, Washington. They settled at Alki Point on November 13, 1851.
History
A wagon party headed by Arthur A. Denny left Cherry Grove, Illinois on April 10, 1851. The part ...
, arrived from
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
via
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...
, on the schooner ''Exact'' at Alki Point on November 13, 1851. The settlement was moved to the eastern shore of
Elliott Bay
Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is in the U.S. state of Washington, extending southeastward between West Point in the north and Alki Point in the south. Seattle was founded on this body of water in the 1850s ...
and named "Seattle" in 1852, in honor of Chief Si'ahl of the local
Duwamish Duwamish may refer to:
* Duwamish tribe, a Native American tribe in Washington state
* Duwamish River, in Washington state
* ''Duwamish'' (fireboat)
See also
* Elliott Bay
Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is ...
and
Suquamish
The Suquamish () are a Lushootseed language, Lushootseed-speaking Native Americans in the United States, Native American people, located in present-day Washington (state), Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish peopl ...
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
people, as well as a thriving LGBT community that ranks sixth in the United States by population.
Logging was Seattle's first major industry, but by the late 19th century, the city had become a commercial and shipbuilding center as a gateway to
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
was partially due to the local
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
company, which established Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle area developed into a technology center from the 1980s onwards with companies like
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
becoming established in the region; Microsoft founder
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
is a Seattleite by birth. Internet retailer
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
was founded in Seattle in 1994, and major airline
Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines is a major American airline headquartered in SeaTac, Washington, within the Seattle metropolitan area. It is the sixth largest airline in North America when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and the num ...
is based in SeaTac, Washington, serving Seattle's international airport,
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport , branded as SEA Airport and also referred to as Sea–Tac (), is the primary commercial airport serving the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It is in the city of SeaTac, which ...
. The stream of new software,
biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...
, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, which increased the city's population by almost 50,000 between 1990 and 2000. Seattle also has a significant musical history. Between 1918 and 1951, nearly two dozen
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Ge ...
,
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
,
Ernestine Anderson
Ernestine Anderson (November 11, 1928 – March 10, 2016) was an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She sang at Carnegie Hall, ...
, and others. Seattle is also the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix, as well as the origin of the bands
Nirvana
( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...
Soundgarden
Soundgarden was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984 by singer and drummer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil (both of whom are the only members to appear in every incarnation of the band), and bassist Hiro Yama ...
,
Heart
The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...
,
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains (often abbreviated as AIC) is an American rock band from Seattle, Washington, formed in 1987 by guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney, who later recruited bassist Mike Starr and lead vocalist Layne ...
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...
Archaeological excavations suggest that Native Americans have inhabited the Seattle area for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived, the people (subsequently called the
Duwamish tribe
The Duwamish ( lut, Dxʷdəwʔabš, ) are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American tribe in western Washington, and the indigenous people of metropolitan Seattle, where they have been living since the end of the last glacial period (c. 8000 BCE ...
) occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around
Elliott Bay
Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is in the U.S. state of Washington, extending southeastward between West Point in the north and Alki Point in the south. Seattle was founded on this body of water in the 1850s ...
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
to chart the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...
.
In 1851, a large party of American pioneers led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River; they formally claimed it on September 14, 1851. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party. Members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28, 1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail on the schooner ''Exact'' from Portland, Oregon, stopping in Astoria, and landed at Alki Point during a rainstorm on November 13, 1851. After a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and claimed land a second time at the site of present-day Pioneer Square, naming this new settlement ''Duwamps''.
Charles Terry and John Low remained at the original landing location, reestablished their old land claim and called it "New York", but renamed "New York Alki" in April 1853, from a Chinook word meaning, roughly, "by and by" or "someday". For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, but in time Alki was abandoned and its residents moved across the bay to join the rest of the settlers. David Swinson "Doc" Maynard, one of the founders of Duwamps, was the primary advocate to name the settlement Seattle after Chief Si'ahl ( lut, siʔaɫ, anglicized as "Seattle") chief of the Duwamish and
Suquamish
The Suquamish () are a Lushootseed language, Lushootseed-speaking Native Americans in the United States, Native American people, located in present-day Washington (state), Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish peopl ...
tribes. Includes bibliography. A modern transliteration of the original Coast Salish settlements around Elliott Bay is rendered in
Lushootseed
Lushootseed (txʷəlšucid, dxʷləšúcid), also Puget Salish, Puget Sound Salish or Skagit-Nisqually, is a language made up of a dialect continuum of several Salish tribes of modern-day Washington state. Lushootseed is one of the Coast Salis ...
as .
The name "Seattle" appears on official
Washington Territory
The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...
papers dated May 23, 1853, when the first
plat
In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...
s for the village were filed. In 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14, 1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of trustees managing the city. The Town of Seattle was disincorporated on January 18, 1867, and remained a mere precinct of King County until late 1869, when a new petition was filed and the city was re-incorporated December 2, 1869, with a
mayor–council government
The mayor–council government system is a system of local government that has a mayor who is directly elected by the voters serve as chief executive, and a separately elected legislative city council. It is one of the two most common forms of ...
. The corporate seal of the City of Seattle carries the date "1869" and a likeness of Chief Si'ahl in left profile. That same year, Seattle acquired the epithet of the "Queen City", a designation officially changed in 1982 to "Emerald City".
Timber town
Seattle has a history of boom-and-bust cycles, like many other cities near areas of extensive natural and mineral resources. Seattle has risen several times economically, then gone into precipitous decline, but it has typically used those periods to rebuild solid infrastructure.
Author has granted blanket permission for material from that paper to be reused in Wikipedia. Now at s:Seattle: Booms and Busts.
The first such boom, covering the early years of the city, rode on the lumber industry. During this period the road now known as
Yesler Way
Yesler Way is an east–west street in Seattle named for Henry Yesler, the founder of Seattle. East–west streets in Seattle south of Yesler Way are prefixed "South"; avenues are suffixed with "South" as they cross Yesler Way. The street origina ...
won the nickname "Skid Road," supposedly after the timber skidding down the hill to
Henry Yesler
Henry Leiter Yesler (December 2, 1810 – December 16, 1892) was an entrepreneur and a politician, regarded as a founder of the city of Seattle. Yesler served two non-consecutive terms as Mayor of Seattle, and was the city's wealthiest resident ...
's sawmill. The later dereliction of the area may be a possible origin for the term which later entered the wider American lexicon as ''
Skid Row
A skid row or skid road is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are mostly poor people " on the skids". This specifically refers to poor or homeless, considered disreputable, downtrodden or fo ...
''. Like much of the American West, Seattle saw numerous conflicts between
labor
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the la ...
and
management
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a Government agency, government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includ ...
, as well as ethnic tensions that culminated in the anti-Chinese riots of 1885–1886. This violence originated with unemployed whites who were determined to drive the Chinese from Seattle (anti-Chinese riots also occurred in Tacoma). In 1900, Asians were 4.2% of the population. Authorities declared martial law and federal troops arrived to put down the disorder.
Seattle had achieved sufficient economic success that when the
Great Seattle Fire
The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington on June 6, 1889. The conflagration lasted for less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night, and during the same sum ...
of 1889 destroyed the central business district, a far grander city-center rapidly emerged in its place. Finance company
Washington Mutual
Washington Mutual (often abbreviated to WaMu) was the United States' largest savings and loan association until its collapse in 2008.
A savings bank holding company is defined in United States Code: Title 12: Banks and Banking; Section 1842: Def ...
, for example, was founded in the immediate wake of the fire. However, the Panic of 1893 hit Seattle hard.
Gold Rush, World War I, and the Great Depression
The second and most dramatic boom resulted from the Klondike Gold Rush, which ended the depression that had begun with the Panic of 1893. In a short time, Seattle became a major transportation center. On July 14, 1897, the ''S.S. Portland'' docked with its famed "ton of gold," and Seattle became the main transport and supply point for the miners in
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
and the
Yukon
Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...
. Few of those working men found lasting wealth. However, it was Seattle's business of clothing the miners and feeding them salmon that panned out in the long run. Along with Seattle, other cities like Everett, Tacoma, Port Townsend,
Bremerton
Bremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington. The population was 37,729 at the 2010 census and an estimated 41,405 in 2019, making it the largest city on the Kitsap Peninsula. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremer ...
, and Olympia, all in the Puget Sound region, became competitors for exchange, rather than mother lodes for extraction, of precious metals. The boom lasted well into the early part of the 20th century, and funded many new Seattle companies and products. In 1907, 19-year-old James E. Casey borrowed $100 from a friend and founded the American Messenger Company (later UPS). Other Seattle companies founded during this period include
Nordstrom
Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, a ...
and
Eddie Bauer
Eddie Bauer, LLC is an American clothing store chain headquartered in Seattle, Seattle, Washington. Eddie Bauer sells its merchandise via retail stores, outlet stores, and online and via phone, with a call center in Groveport, Ohio. Its flagship ...
. Seattle brought in the
Olmsted Brothers
The Olmsted Brothers company was a landscape architectural firm in the United States, established in 1898 by brothers John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957), sons of the landscape architect Frederick Law O ...
landscape architecture firm to design a system of parks and boulevards.
The Gold Rush era culminated in the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, which is largely responsible for the layout of today's
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
campus.
A shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century became massive during World War I, making Seattle somewhat of a company town. The subsequent retrenchment led to the
Seattle General Strike of 1919
The Seattle General Strike of 1919 was a five-day general work stoppage by more than 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington from February 6 to 11. Dissatisfied workers in several unions began the strike to gain higher wages, after two ...
, the first general strike in the country. A 1912 city development plan by
Virgil Bogue
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
went largely unused. Seattle was mildly prosperous in the 1920s but was particularly hard hit in the Great Depression, experiencing some of the country's harshest labor strife in that era. Violence during the Maritime Strike of 1934 cost Seattle much of its maritime traffic, which was rerouted to the Port of Los Angeles.
The Great Depression in Seattle affected many minority groups, one being the Asian Pacific Americans; they were subject to racism, loss of property, and failed claims of unemployment due to citizenship status.
Seattle was one of the major cities that benefited from programs such as the
WPA
WPA may refer to:
Computing
*Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard
*Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing
* Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada
* Windows Performance An ...
, CCC, UCL, and PWA. The workers, mostly men, built roads, parks, dams, schools, railroads, bridges, docks, and even historical and archival record sites and buildings. However, Seattle faced massive unemployment, loss of lumber and construction industries as
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
prevailed as the bigger West Coast city. Seattle had building contracts that rivaled
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
and
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, but lost to LA as well. Seattle's eastern farm land faded due to
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...
's and the Midwest's, forcing people into town.
The famous ''
Hooverville A "Hooverville" was a shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States. They were named after Herbert Hoover, who was President of the United States during the onset of the Depression and was widely blamed for it. ...
'' arose during the Depression, leading to Seattle's growing homeless population. Stationed outside Seattle, the Hooverville housed thousands of men but very very few children and no women. With work projects close to the city, Hooverville grew and the WPA settled into the city.
A movement by women arose from Seattle during the Depression. Fueled by
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...
's book ''It's Up to the Women'', women pushed for recognition, not just as housewives, but as the backbone to family. Using newspapers and journals ''Working Woman'' and ''The Woman Today'', women pushed to be seen as equal and receive some recognition.
Seattle's
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
was greatly affected during the Depression era. As schools across Washington lost funding and attendance, the UW actually prospered during the time period. While
Seattle public schools
Seattle Public Schools is the largest public school district in the state of Washington. The school district serves almost all of Seattle. Additionally it includes sections of Boulevard Park and Tukwila. As of 2018, 113 schools are operated by ...
were influenced by Washington's superintendent Worth McClure, they still struggled to pay teachers and maintain attendance. The UW, despite academic challenges that plagued the college due to differing views on teaching and learning, focused on growth in student enrollment rather than improving the existing school.
Seattle was also the home base of impresario Alexander Pantages who, starting in 1902, opened a number of theaters in the city exhibiting
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
acts and silent movies. He went on to became one of America's greatest theater and movie tycoons. Scottish-born architect B. Marcus Priteca designed several theaters for Pantages in Seattle, which were later demolished or converted to other uses. Seattle's surviving Paramount Theatre, on which he collaborated, was not a Pantages theater.
Post-war years: aircraft and software
War work again brought local prosperity during World War II, this time centered on Boeing aircraft. The war dispersed the city's numerous Japanese-American businessmen due to the Japanese American internment. After the war, the local economy dipped. It rose again with Boeing's growing dominance in the commercial airliner market. Seattle celebrated its restored prosperity and made a bid for world recognition with the
Century 21 Exposition
The Century 21 Exposition (also known as the Seattle World's Fair) was a world's fair held April 21, 1962, to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington, United States.1962 World's Fair, for which the iconic
Space Needle
The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington, United States. Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a Seattle landmark. Located in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, it was built in the Seattle Center ...
was built. Another major local economic downturn was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when Boeing was heavily affected by the oil crises, loss of government contracts, and costs and delays associated with the Boeing 747. Many people left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading "Will the last person leaving Seattle – Turn out the lights."
Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company separated its headquarters from its major production facilities; the headquarters were moved to Chicago. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's Renton narrow-body plant and Everett wide-body plant. The company's
credit union
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provisi ...
for employees,
BECU
BECU is a credit union originally established to serve employees of Boeing, The Boeing Company. BECU was founded as Fellowship Credit Union in 1935 by 18 Boeing employees, and was named Boeing Employees' Credit Union for much of its history. It ...
, remains based in the Seattle area and has been open to all residents of Washington since 2002.
On March 20, 1970, twenty-eight people were killed when the Ozark Hotel was burned by an unknown arsonist.
As prosperity began to return in the 1980s, the city was stunned by the
Wah Mee massacre
The Wah Mee massacre () was a mass shooting that occurred during the night of February 18–19, 1983, in which Kwan Fai "Willie" Mak, Wai Chiu "Tony" Ng, and Keung Kin "Benjamin" Ng (no relation) bound, robbed, and shot fourteen people in the Wa ...
in 1983, when thirteen people were killed in an illegal gambling club in the
Seattle Chinatown-International District
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of N ...
. Beginning with
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
's 1979 move from
Albuquerque
Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...
, New Mexico, to nearby
Bellevue, Washington
Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has variously been characterized as ...
, Seattle and its suburbs became home to a number of technology companies including
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
,
F5 Networks
F5, Inc. is an American technology company specializing in application security, multi-cloud management, online fraud prevention, application delivery networking (ADN), application availability & performance, network security, and access & autho ...
Nintendo of America
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing card ...
, and
T-Mobile
T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobil ...
. This success brought an influx of new residents with a population increase within city limits of almost 50,000 between 1990 and 2000, and saw Seattle's real estate become some of the most expensive in the country. In 1993, the movie ''
Sleepless in Seattle
''Sleepless in Seattle'' is a 1993 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Nora Ephron, from a screenplay she wrote with David S. Ward and Jeff Arch. Starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the film follows a journalist (Ryan) who, despite ...
'' brought the city further national attention, as did the television sitcom ''
Frasier
''Frasier'' () is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for 11 seasons. It premiered on September 16, 1993, and ended on May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee (as Grub ...
''. The
dot-com boom
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...
caused a great frenzy among the technology companies in Seattle but the bubble ended in early 2001.
Seattle in this period attracted widespread attention as home to these many companies, but also by hosting the 1990 Goodwill Games and the
APEC
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC ) is an inter-governmental forum for 21 member economies in the Pacific Rim that promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
leaders conference in 1993, as well as through the worldwide popularity of grunge, a sound that had developed in Seattle's independent music scene. Another bid for worldwide attention—hosting the
World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999
The WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 was a meeting of the World Trade Organization, convened at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle, Washington, USA, over the course of three days, beginning Tuesday, 30 November 1999. ...
—garnered visibility, but not in the way its sponsors desired, as related protest activity and police reactions to those protests overshadowed the conference itself. The city was further shaken by the Mardi Gras Riots in 2001, and then literally shaken the following day by the
Nisqually earthquake
The 2001 Nisqually earthquake occurred at on February 28, 2001 and lasted nearly a minute. The intraslab earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (''Severe''). The epicenter was in the southern Puget So ...
.
Another boom began as the city emerged from the
Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
which commenced when Amazon.com moved its headquarters from North Beacon Hill to
South Lake Union
South Lake Union (sometimes SLU) is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, so named because it is at the southern tip of Lake Union.
The official boundaries of the City of Seattle Urban Center are Denny Way on the south, beyond which is Den ...
. This initiated a historic construction boom which resulted in the completion of almost 10,000 apartments in Seattle in 2017, which is more than any previous year and nearly twice as many as were built in 2016. Beginning in 2010, and for the next five years, Seattle gained an average of 14,511 residents per year, with the growth strongly skewed toward the center of the city, as unemployment dropped from roughly 9 percent to 3.6 percent. The city has found itself "bursting at the seams", with over 45,000 households spending more than half their income on housing and at least 2,800 people homeless, and with the country's sixth-worst rush hour traffic.
Geography
Topography
Seattle is located between the saltwater Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) to the west and Lake Washington to the east. The city's chief harbor, Elliott Bay, is part of Puget Sound, which makes the city an oceanic port. To the west, beyond Puget Sound, are 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 ...
and
Olympic Mountains
The Olympic Mountains are a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high – Mount Olympus is the highest at ; however, the easte ...
on the Olympic Peninsula; to the east, beyond Lake Washington and the Eastside suburbs, are
Lake Sammamish
Lake Sammamish is a freshwater lake east of Seattle in King County, Washington, United States. The lake is long and wide, with a maximum depth of and a surface area of . It lies east of Lake Washington and west of the Sammamish Plateau, a ...
Salmon Bay
Salmon Bay is a portion of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which passes through the city of Seattle, linking Lake Washington to Puget Sound, lying west of the Fremont Cut. It is the westernmost section of the canal and empties into Puget Sound' ...
, ending in
Shilshole Bay
Shilshole Bay is the part of Puget Sound east of a line drawn northeasterly from Seattle's West Point in the southwest to its Golden Gardens Park in the northeast. On its shores lie Discovery Park, the Lawton Wood section of the Magnolia neighb ...
on Puget Sound).
The sea, rivers, forests, lakes, and fields surrounding Seattle were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. The surrounding area lends itself well to sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking year-round.
The city itself is hilly, though not uniformly so. Like Rome, the city is said to lie on seven hills; the lists vary but typically include Capitol Hill, First Hill, West Seattle, Beacon Hill, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and the former Denny Hill. The Wallingford, Delridge, Mount Baker, Seward Park, Washington Park, Broadmoor, Madrona, Phinney Ridge, Sunset Hill, Blue Ridge, Broadview, Laurelhurst, Hawthorne Hills, Maple Leaf, and Crown Hill neighborhoods are all located on hills as well. Many of the hilliest areas are near the city center, with Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Beacon Hill collectively constituting something of a ridge along an isthmus between Elliott Bay and Lake Washington. The break in the ridge between First Hill and Beacon Hill is man-made, the result of two of the many regrading projects that reshaped the topography of the city center. The topography of the city center was also changed by the construction of a seawall and the artificial Harbor Island (completed 1909) at the mouth of the city's industrial Duwamish Waterway, the terminus of the Green River. The highest point within city limits is at High Point in West Seattle, which is roughly located near 35th Ave SW and SW Myrtle St. Other notable hills include Crown Hill, View Ridge/Wedgwood/Bryant, Maple Leaf, Phinney Ridge, Mt. Baker Ridge, and Highlands/Carkeek/Bitterlake.
North of the city center, Lake Washington Ship Canal connects Puget Sound to Lake Washington. It incorporates four natural bodies of water: Lake Union, Salmon Bay, Portage Bay, and Union Bay.
Due to its location in the
Pacific Ring of Fire
The Ring of Fire (also known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Rim of Fire, the Girdle of Fire or the Circum-Pacific belt) is a region around much of the rim of the Pacific Ocean where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur. The Ring o ...
, Seattle is in a major earthquake zone. On February 28, 2001, the magnitude 6.8
Nisqually earthquake
The 2001 Nisqually earthquake occurred at on February 28, 2001 and lasted nearly a minute. The intraslab earthquake had a moment magnitude of 6.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (''Severe''). The epicenter was in the southern Puget So ...
did significant architectural damage, especially in the Pioneer Square area (built on
reclaimed land
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamati ...
, as are the Industrial District and part of the city center), and caused one fatality.
Other strong quakes occurred on January 26, 1700 (estimated at 9 magnitude), December 14, 1872 (7.3 or 7.4), April 13, 1949 (7.1), and April 29, 1965 (6.5). The 1965 quake caused three deaths in Seattle directly and one more by heart failure. Although the
Seattle Fault
The Seattle Fault is a zone of multiple shallow east–west thrust faults that cross the Puget Sound Lowland and through Seattle (in the U.S. state of Washington) in the vicinity of Interstate Highway 90. The Seattle Fault was first recognized as ...
passes just south of the city center, neither it nor the
Cascadia subduction zone
The Cascadia subduction zone is a convergent plate boundary that stretches from northern Vancouver Island in Canada to Northern California in the United States. It is a very long, sloping subduction zone where the Explorer, Juan de Fuca, a ...
has caused an earthquake since the city's founding. The Cascadia subduction zone poses the threat of an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater, capable of seriously damaging the city and collapsing many buildings, especially in zones built on fill.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and , water (41.16% of the total area).
Cityscape
Climate
Seattle has a temperate climate, classified in the Mediterranean zone by the main climatic classification (
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...
: ''Csb''), but some sources put the city in the
oceanic zone
The oceanic zone is typically defined as the area of the ocean lying beyond the continental shelf (such as the Neritic zone), but operationally is often referred to as beginning where the water depths drop to below 200 meters (660 feet), seaward ...
(''Cfb''). It has cool, wet winters and mild, relatively dry summers, covering characteristics of both. The climate is sometimes characterized as a "modified Mediterranean" climate because it is cooler and wetter than a "true" Mediterranean climate, but shares the characteristic dry summer (which has a strong influence on the region's vegetation).
Temperature extremes are moderated by the adjacent
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 ...
heat wave
A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. While definitions vary, a heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the ...
s are rare in the Seattle area, as are very cold temperatures (below about ). The Seattle area is the cloudiest region of the United States, due in part to frequent storms and lows moving in from the adjacent Pacific Ocean. With many more "rain days" than other major American cities, Seattle has a well-earned reputation for frequent rain. In an average year, at least of precipitation falls on 150 days, more than nearly all U.S. cities east of the Rocky Mountains. However, because it often has merely a light drizzle falling from the sky for many days, Seattle actually receives significantly less rainfall (or other precipitation) overall than many other U.S. cities like
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
, or
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
. Seattle is cloudy 201 days out of the year and partly cloudy 93 days.
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...
or
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of O ...
, 0.2% other races, and 5.6%
two or more races
2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and only even prime number. Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many cultur ...
.
Seattle's population historically has been predominantly white. The 2010 census showed that Seattle was one of the whitest big cities in the country, although its proportion of white residents has been gradually declining. In 1960, whites constituted 91.6% of the city's population, while in 2010 they constituted 69.5%.Race, Hispanic or Latino, Age, and Housing Occupancy: 2010 more information 2010 Census Redistricting Data (Public Law 94-171) Summary File . Factfinder2census.gov. (2010). Retrieved December 30, 2011. According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, approximately 78.9% of residents over the age of five spoke only English at home. Those who spoke
Asian languages
A wide variety of languages are spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Tur ...
other than Indo-European languages made up 10.2% of the population, Spanish was spoken by 4.5% of the population, speakers of other
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
made up 3.9%, and speakers of other languages made up 2.5%.
Seattle's foreign-born population grew 40% between the 1990 and 2000 censuses. The
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
population in the Seattle area has origins in
mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
. The earliest Chinese-Americans that came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were almost entirely from Guangdong Province. The Seattle area is also home to a large
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
population of more than 55,000 residents, as well as over 30,000 Somali immigrants. The Seattle-Tacoma area is also home to one of the largest Cambodian communities in the United States, numbering about 19,000 Cambodian Americans, and one of the largest Samoan communities in the mainland U.S., with over 15,000 people having Samoan ancestry. Additionally, the Seattle area had the highest percentage of self-identified mixed-race people of any large metropolitan area in the United States, according to the 2000 United States Census Bureau. According to a 2012
HistoryLink
HistoryLink is an online encyclopedia of Washington state history. The site has more than 8,100 entries and attracts 5,000 daily visitors. It has 500 biographies and more than 14,000 images.
The non-profit historical organization History Ink prod ...
study, Seattle's 98118 ZIP code (in the Columbia City neighborhood) was one of the most diverse ZIP Code Tabulation Areas in the United States.
According to the ACS 1-year estimates, in 2018, the median income of a city household was $93,481, and the median income for a family was $130,656. 11.0% of the population and 6.6% of families were below the poverty line. Of people living in poverty, 11.4% were under the age of 18 and 10.9% were 65 or older.
It is estimated that King County has 8,000 homeless people on any given night, and many of those live in Seattle. In September 2005, King County adopted a "Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness", one of the near-term results of which is a shift of funding from homeless shelter beds to permanent housing.
In recent years, the city has experienced steady population growth, and has been faced with the issue of accommodating more residents. In 2006, after growing by 4,000 citizens per year for the previous 16 years, regional planners expected the population of Seattle to grow by 200,000 people by 2040. However, former mayor Greg Nickels supported plans that would increase the population by 60%, or 350,000 people, by 2040 and worked on ways to accommodate this growth while keeping Seattle's single-family housing zoning laws. The Seattle City Council later voted to relax height limits on buildings in the greater part of Downtown, partly with the aim to increase residential density in the city center. As a sign of increasing downtown core growth, the Downtown population crested to over 60,000 in 2009, up 77% since 1990.
In 2021 Seattle experienced its first population decline in 50 years.
Seattle has a relatively high number of adults living alone. According to the 2000 U.S. Census interim measurements of 2004, Seattle has the fifth highest proportion of single-person households nationwide among cities of 100,000 or more residents, at 40.8%.
Sexual orientation and gender identity
Seattle has a notably large
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is an ...
community. According to a 2006 study by
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
, 12.9% of city residents polled identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. This was the second-highest proportion of any major U.S. city, behind
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
. Greater Seattle also ranked second among major U.S. metropolitan areas, with 6.5% of the population identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. According to 2012 estimates from the United States Census Bureau, Seattle has the highest percentage of same-sex households in the United States, at 2.6 percent, surpassing San Francisco (2.5 percent). The Capitol Hill district has historically been the center of LGBT culture in Seattle.
Economy
Seattle's economy is driven by a mix of older industrial companies and "new economy" internet and technology companies, as well as service, design, and clean technology companies. The city's gross metropolitan product (GMP) was $231 billion in 2010, making it the 11th largest metropolitan economy in the United States. The Port of Seattle, which also operates
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport , branded as SEA Airport and also referred to as Sea–Tac (), is the primary commercial airport serving the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It is in the city of SeaTac, which ...
, is a major gateway for trade with Asia and cruises to Alaska. It also is the 8th largest port in the United States when measured by container capacity. Its maritime cargo operations merged with the
Port of Tacoma
The Port of Tacoma is an independent seaport located in Tacoma, Washington. The port was created by a vote of Pierce County citizens on November 5, 1918. The ''Edmore'' was the first ship to call at the port in 1921. The port's marine cargo opera ...
in 2015 to form the
Northwest Seaport Alliance
The Northwest Seaport Alliance is a port authority based in the Puget Sound region of the United States, comprising the seaports of Seattle and Tacoma in Washington state. The combined port authority is the third largest cargo port in the Uni ...
. Although it was affected by the
Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
, Seattle has retained a comparatively strong economy, and is noted for start-up businesses, especially in green building and clean technologies. In February 2010, the city government committed Seattle to become North America's first "climate neutral" city, with a goal of reaching zero net per capita greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Large companies continue to dominate the business landscape. Seven companies on Fortune 500's 2022 list of the United States' largest companies (based on total revenue) are headquartered in Seattle: Internet retailer
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
Expeditors International of Washington
Expeditors (Expeditors International of Washington) is an American worldwide logistics and freight forwarding company headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Financial information
Expeditors became a publicly traded company in 1984 with the listing ...
(#225), department store
Nordstrom
Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, a ...
(#245), forest products company
Weyerhaeuser
Weyerhaeuser () is an American timberland company which owns nearly of timberlands in the U.S., and manages an additional of timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada. The company also manufactures wood products. It operates as a real e ...
(#354), online travel company
Expedia Group
Expedia Group, Inc. is an American online travel shopping company for consumer and small business travel. Its websites, which are primarily travel fare aggregators and travel metasearch engines, include Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Vrbo (previous ...
(#404) and real-estate tech company
Zillow
Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006, and was created by Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer ...
(#424) . Other Fortune 500 companies commonly associated with Seattle are based in nearby Puget Sound cities. Warehouse club chain
Costco
Costco Wholesale Corporation (Trade name, doing business as Costco Wholesale and also known simply as Costco) is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only Big-box store, big-box retail stores (warehouse c ...
(#11), the largest retail company in Washington, is based in
Issaquah
Issaquah ( ) is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 40,051 at the 2020 census. Located in a valley and bisected by Interstate 90, the city is bordered by the Sammamish Plateau to the north and the " Issaquah Al ...
.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
(#14) is located in Redmond. Furthermore, Bellevue is home to truck manufacturer
Paccar
Paccar Inc is an American ''Fortune'' 500 company and counts among the largest manufacturers of medium- and heavy-duty trucks in the world, and has substantial manufacturing in light and medium vehicles through its various subsidiaries. It was ...
(#151). Other major companies headquartered in the area include
Nintendo of America
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing card ...
in Redmond,
T-Mobile US
T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas and Bellevue, Washington, U.S. Its largest shareholder is a multinational telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG, which , holds 48.4 pe ...
in Bellevue, and
Providence Health & Services
Providence Health & Services (since 2016: Providence St. Joseph Health) is a not-for-profit, Catholic health care system operating multiple hospitals across seven states, with headquarters in Renton, Washington. The health system includes 51 ho ...
(the state's largest health care system and fifth largest employer) in Renton. The city has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks,
Seattle's Best Coffee
Seattle's Best Coffee is a brand of wholesale coffee, ground coffee, and K-cup coffee that is owned by Nestlé. While Seattle's Best Coffee used to have coffeehouses in the United States, they appear to have closed down or have been converted to ...
, and Tully's. There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafés.
Before moving its headquarters to Chicago and then ultimately
Arlington, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county ...
, aerospace manufacturer
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and p ...
(#60) was the largest company based in Seattle. Its largest division, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is still headquartered within the Puget Sound region. The company also has large aircraft manufacturing plants in Everett and Renton; it remains the largest private employer in the Seattle metropolitan area. In 2006 former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the
biotechnology
Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...
industry. Major redevelopment of the
South Lake Union
South Lake Union (sometimes SLU) is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, so named because it is at the southern tip of Lake Union.
The official boundaries of the City of Seattle Urban Center are Denny Way on the south, beyond which is Den ...
neighborhood is underway in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the city, joining biotech companies
Corixa
''Corixa'' is a genus of aquatic bugs in the family Corixidae. The fossil species ''C. elegans'' is from the Rott Formation
The Rott Formation is a geologic formation in Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of German ...
Vulcan Inc.
Vulcan LLC is a privately held company founded by the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his sister Jody Allen in 1986 to establish and oversee the family's diverse business activities and philanthropic endeavors. It includes Vulcan Real Estate ...
, the holding company of billionaire
Paul Allen
Paul Gardner Allen (January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018) was an American business magnate, computer programmer, researcher, investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded Microsoft Corporation with childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975, which ...
, is behind most of the development projects in the region. While some see the new development as an economic boon, others have criticized Nickels and the
Seattle City Council
The Seattle City Council is the legislative body of the city of Seattle, Washington. The Council consists of nine members serving four-year terms, seven of which are elected by electoral districts and two of which are elected in citywide at-l ...
for pandering to Allen's interests at taxpayers' expense. In 2005, ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'' ranked Seattle as the most expensive American city for buying a house based on the local income levels. Owing largely to the rapidly increasing cost of living, Seattle and Washington State have some of the highest minimum wages in the country, at $15 per hour for smaller businesses and $16 for the city's largest employers.
Operating a hub at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport,
Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines is a major American airline headquartered in SeaTac, Washington, within the Seattle metropolitan area. It is the sixth largest airline in North America when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and the num ...
maintains its headquarters in the city of SeaTac, next to the airport. Seattle is a hub for global health with the headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, PATH,
Infectious Disease Research Institute
The Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) was a non-profit organization based in Seattle, in the United States, and which conducts global health research on infectious diseases. Its new name is Access to Advanced Health Institute (AAHI).
...
,
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, formerly known as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and also known as Fred Hutch or The Hutch, is a cancer research institute established in 1975 in Seattle, Washington.
History
The center grew out o ...
, and the
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is a research institute working in the area of global health statistics and impact evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle. The Institute is headed by Christopher J.L. Murray ...
. In 2015, the Washington Global Health Alliance counted 168 global health organizations in Washington state. Many are headquartered in Seattle.
Seattle has been a regional center for the performing arts for many years. The century-old
Seattle Symphony Orchestra
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra also serves as the accompanying orchestra for the Seattle Opera.
History
Beginnings
The orchest ...
has won many awards and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The
Seattle Opera
Seattle Opera is an opera company based in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1963 by Glynn Ross, who served as its first general director until 1983. The company's season runs from August through late May, comprising five or six operas of ...
and
Pacific Northwest Ballet
Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) is a ballet company based in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. It is said to have the highest per capita attendance in the United States, with 11,000 subscribers in 2004.
The company consists of 49 dan ...
, which perform at
McCaw Hall
Marion Oliver McCaw Hall (often abbreviated to McCaw Hall) is a performing arts hall in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located on the grounds of Seattle Center and owned by the city of Seattle, McCaw Hall's two principal tenants are the Seat ...
(opened in 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States. The
Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras
Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras (SYSO) is the largest youth symphony organization and youth orchestra training program in the United States, as well as the eighth oldest.
Programs
SYSO-in-the-Schools supports public school instrumental music pr ...
(SYSO) is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States. The city also boasts lauded summer and winter chamber music festivals organized by the
Seattle Chamber Music Society
The Seattle Chamber Music Society (SCMS) is an American organization of musicians located in Seattle, Washington that is dedicated to the performance and promotion of chamber music. Established in 1982, the presenting organization is currently in ...
.
The
5th Avenue Theatre
The 5th Avenue Theatre is a landmark theatre located in Seattle's Skinner Building, in the U.S. state of Washington. It has hosted a variety of theatre productions and motion pictures since it opened in 1926. The building and land are owned b ...
, built in 1926, stages Broadway-style musical shows featuring both local talent and international stars. Seattle has "around 100" theatrical production companies "around 100 theater companies ... Twenty-eight have some sort of
Actors' Equity
The Actors' Equity Association (AEA), commonly referred to as Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing those who work in live theatrical performance. Performers appearing in live stage productions without a book ...
contract ..." and over two dozen live theatre venues, many of them associated with fringe theatre; Seattle is probably second only to New York for number of equity theaters (28 Seattle theater companies have some sort of
Actors' Equity
The Actors' Equity Association (AEA), commonly referred to as Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing those who work in live theatrical performance. Performers appearing in live stage productions without a book ...
contract).
In addition, the 900-seat
Romanesque Revival
Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...
Town Hall on First Hill hosts numerous cultural events, especially lectures and recitals.
Between 1918 and 1951, there were nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs along Jackson Street, running from the current Chinatown/International District to the Central District. The jazz scene developed the early careers of
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Ge ...
,
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, musician, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years in the entertainment industry with a record of 80 Grammy Award n ...
,
Bumps Blackwell
A bumps race is a form of rowing race in which a number of boats chase each other in single file, each crew attempting to catch and ‘bump’ the boat in front without being caught by the boat behind.
The form is mainly used in intercollegia ...
,
Ernestine Anderson
Ernestine Anderson (November 11, 1928 – March 10, 2016) was an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She sang at Carnegie Hall, ...
, and others.
Early popular musical acts from the Seattle/Puget Sound area include the collegiate folk group
The Brothers Four
The Brothers Four is an American folk singing group, founded in 1957 in Seattle, Washington, and known for their 1960 hit song "Greenfields."
History
Bob Flick, John Paine, Mike Kirkland, and Dick Foley met at the University of Washington, wher ...
, vocal group
The Fleetwoods
The Fleetwoods were an American vocal group from Olympia, Washington whose members were Gary Troxel (born November 28, 1939), Gretchen Christopher (born February 29, 1940), and Barbara Ellis (born February 20, 1940).
Early history
The band mem ...
, 1960s garage rockers
The Wailers
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
and
The Sonics
The Sonics are an American garage rock band from Tacoma, Washington that formed in 1960. Their aggressive, hard-edged sound has been a major influence on punk and garage music worldwide, and they have been named inspirations to the White Str ...
, and instrumental surf group
The Ventures
The Ventures are an American instrumental rock band formed in Tacoma, Washington, in 1958, by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle. The band, which was a quartet for most of its existence, helped to popularize the electric guitar across the world during the ...
, some of whom are still active.
Seattle is considered the home of grunge music, having produced artists such as
Nirvana
( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...
,
Soundgarden
Soundgarden was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984 by singer and drummer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil (both of whom are the only members to appear in every incarnation of the band), and bassist Hiro Yama ...
,
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains (often abbreviated as AIC) is an American rock band from Seattle, Washington, formed in 1987 by guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney, who later recruited bassist Mike Starr and lead vocalist Layne ...
, Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney, all of whom reached international audiences in the early 1990s. The city is also home to such varied artists as
avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Ori ...
musicians
Bill Frisell
William Richard Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist, composer and arranger. Frisell first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader. He went on to work in a variety of contexts ...
and
Wayne Horvitz
Wayne Horvitz (born 1955) is an American composer, keyboardist and record producer. He came to prominence in the Downtown scene of 1980s and '90s New York City, where he met his future wife, the singer, songwriter and pianist Robin Holcomb. He ...
Sir Mix-a-Lot
Anthony L. Ray (born August 12, 1963), better known by his stage name Sir Mix-a-Lot, is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his 1992 hit song " Baby Got Back", which peaked at number one on the ''Billboard'' ...
,
Macklemore
Benjamin Hammond Haggerty (born June 19, 1983), better known by his stage name Macklemore ( ; (formerly Professor Macklemore), is an American rapper and songwriter. A native of Seattle, Washington, he has collaborated with producer Ryan Lewi ...
,
Blue Scholars
Blue Scholars is an American hip hop duo based in Seattle, Washington, created in 2002 while the members, DJ Sabzi (Saba Mohajerjasbi) and MC Geologic (George Quibuyen), were students at University of Washington.
The name "Blue Scholars" is ...
, and
Shabazz Palaces
Shabazz Palaces is an American hip hop group from Seattle led by Ishmael Butler a.k.a. Palaceer Lazaro (formerly Butterfly of jazz rap group Digable Planets). Much of the Butler's work as Shabazz Palaces has been made in collaboration with mult ...
,
smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s.
History
Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 19 ...
saxophonist
Kenny G
Kenneth Bruce Gorelick (born June 5, 1956), known professionally as Kenny G, is an American smooth jazz saxophonist, composer, and producer. His 1986 album ''Duotones'' brought him commercial success. Kenny G is one of the best-selling artis ...
,
classic rock
Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prima ...
staples
Heart
The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...
and
Queensrÿche
Queensrÿche is an American heavy metal band. It formed in 1982 in Bellevue, Washington, out of the local band the Mob. The band has released 16 studio albums, one EP, and several DVDs, and continues to tour and record. The original lineup ...
, and alternative rock bands such as Foo Fighters,
Harvey Danger
Harvey Danger was an American alternative rock band that was formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1992 by journalism students at the University of Washington. The band rose to prominence in 1997 with the single " Flagpole Sitta", which was later u ...
The Posies
The Posies were an American power pop group. The band was formed in 1986 in Bellingham, Washington, United States, by primary songwriters Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow.
Their music has its origins in Merseybeat and the Hollies. They are ...
Band of Horses
Band of Horses is an American rock band formed in 2004 in Seattle, Washington. Led by singer-songwriter Ben Bridwell, who has served as the band's sole constant member throughout numerous line-up changes, the band's current line-up also inclu ...
,
Death Cab for Cutie
Death Cab for Cutie is an American rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington, in 1997. The band is currently composed of Ben Gibbard (vocals, guitar, piano), Nick Harmer (bass), Dave Depper (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Zac Rae (keyb ...
, and
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes is an American indie folk band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 2006. The band consists of Robin Pecknold (vocals, guitar), Skyler Skjelset (guitar, mandolin, backing vocals), Casey Wescott (keyboards, mandolin, backing vocals), ...
Duff McKagan
Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American musician. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late ...
, and
Nikki Sixx
Nikki Sixx (born Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr.; December 11, 1958) is an American musician, best known as the co-founder, bassist, and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. Prior to forming Mötley Crüe, Sixx was a me ...
spent their formative years in Seattle.
The Seattle-based Sub Pop record company continues to be one of the world's best-known independent/alternative music labels. Over the years, a number of songs have been written about Seattle.
Seattle annually sends a team of
spoken word
Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...
slammers to the
National Poetry Slam The National Poetry Slam (NPS) is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and, occasionally, Europe and Australia, participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year an ...
and considers itself home to such performance poets as
Buddy Wakefield
Kenneth Zane Beasley III (born June 4, 1974), known as Buddy Wakefield, is an American spoken word artist, a three-time poetry slam world champion, and the most toured performance poet in history. His works have been released by Strange Famous Re ...
Anis Mojgani
Anis Mojgani ( Persian: انیس مژگانی) (born June 13, 1977) is an American spoken word poet, visual artist and musician based in Portland, Oregon. Mojgani has been characterized as a "geek genius" with "fiercely hopeful word arias."
Ea ...
, two-time National Poetry Slam Champ; and
Danny Sherrard The National Poetry Slam (NPS) is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and, occasionally, Europe and Australia, participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year an ...
, 2007 National Poetry Slam Champ and 2008 Individual World Poetry Slam Champ. Seattle also hosted the 2001 national Poetry Slam Tournament. The Seattle Poetry Festival is a biennial poetry festival that (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry.
The city also has movie houses showing both Hollywood productions and works by independent filmmakers. Among these, the Seattle Cinerama stands out as one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel
Cinerama
Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporati ...
films.
Tourism
Among Seattle's prominent annual fairs and festivals are the 24-day
Seattle International Film Festival
The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), held annually in Seattle, Washington since 1976, is among the top film festivals in North America. Audiences have grown steadily; the 2006 festival had 160,000 attendees. The SIFF runs for more th ...
, Northwest Folklife over the
Memorial Day
Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) is a federal holiday in the United States for mourning the U.S. military personnel who have fought and died while serving in the United States armed forces. It is observed on the last Monda ...
weekend, numerous
Seafair
Seafair is a summer festival in Seattle, Washington, that encompasses a wide variety of small neighborhood events leading up to several major citywide celebrations. While many small block parties and local parades occur under the auspices of S ...
events throughout July and August (ranging from a
Bon Odori
or just is fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist–Confucian custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people retu ...
celebration to the
Seafair Cup
The Seafair Cup (branded as the HomeStreet Bank Cup for sponsorship reasons, and formerly the Albert Lee Appliance Cup), is an H1 Unlimited hydroplane boat race held annually in late July and early August on Lake Washington in Seattle, Washingt ...
hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, one of the largest
Gay Pride
LGBT pride (also known as gay pride or simply pride) is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to s ...
festivals in the United States, and the art and music festival Bumbershoot, which programs music as well as other art and entertainment over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by 100,000 people annually, as are the
Seattle Hempfest
Seattle Hempfest is an annual event in the city of Seattle, Washington (and the world's largest annual gathering) advocating the legalization of cannabis. Vivian McPeak serves as the organization's executive director. Founded in 1991 as the W ...
and two separate Independence Day celebrations.
Other significant events include numerous Native American
pow-wow
A powwow (also pow wow or pow-wow) is a gathering with dances held by many Native American and First Nations communities. Powwows today allow Indigenous people to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures. Powwows may be private or pu ...
anime
is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...
convention,
Sakura-Con
Sakura-Con is an annual three-day anime convention held during March or April at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington. The convention, which is traditionally held over Easter weekend, is the largest anime convention in the ...
;
Penny Arcade Expo
PAX (originally known as Penny Arcade Expo) is a series of gaming culture festivals involving tabletop, arcade, and video gaming. PAX is held annually in Seattle, Boston and Philadelphia in the United States; and Melbourne in Australia. PAX w ...
, a gaming convention; a two-day, 9,000-rider
Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic
The Seattle to Portland, or STP, is an annual one- or two-day supported bicycle ride from Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, to Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, in the United States. The STP "is considered one of the 10 biggest recreationa ...
Seattle Asian American Film Festival
The Seattle Asian American Film Festival was founded in 1985 and has been revived over the years by different producers. The current iteration was founded in 2012 and made its debut in 2013 by co-founders Kevin Bang and Vanessa Au. It is a reviva ...
, Children's Film Festival Seattle, Translation: the Seattle Transgender Film Festival, the
Seattle Queer Film Festival
Seattle Queer Film Festival (formerly known as the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival) is an annual film festival in Seattle. The 25th Annual Seattle Queer Film Festival will take place October 14–24, 2021. It is the largest LGBTQ film festival ...
Henry Art Gallery
The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the University District, it wa ...
opened in 1927, the first public art museum in Washington. The
Seattle Art Museum
The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...
(SAM) opened in 1933 and moved to their current downtown location in 1991 (expanded and reopened in 2007); since 1991, the 1933 building has been SAM's
Seattle Asian Art Museum
The Seattle Asian Art Museum (often abbreviated to SAAM) is a museum of Asian art at Volunteer Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Part of the Seattle Art Museum, the SAAM exhibits historic and contemp ...
(SAAM). SAM also operates the
Olympic Sculpture Park
The Olympic Sculpture Park, created and operated by the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), is a public park with modern and contemporary sculpture in downtown Seattle, Washington. The park, which opened January 20, 2007, consists of a outdoor sculpture mu ...
(opened in 2007) on the waterfront north of the downtown piers. The
Frye Art Museum
The Frye Art Museum is a modern and contemporary art museum located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1952 to house the collection of Charles and Emma Frye and has since grown to include rotating temporary e ...
is a free museum on
First Hill
First Hill is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is named for the hill on which it is located, which in turn is so named for being the first hill encountered while traveling east from downtown Seattle toward Lake Washing ...
.
Regional history collections are at the Log House Museum in Alki,
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park
Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park is a national historical park operated by the National Park Service that seeks to commemorate the Klondike Gold Rush of the late 1890s. Though the gold fields that were the ultimate goal of the stamped ...
, the
Museum of History and Industry
The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) is a history museum in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the largest private heritage organization in Washington state, maintaining a collection of nearly four m ...
, and the
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture
The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (Burke Museum) is a natural history museum in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. Established in 1899 as the Washington State Museum, it traces its origins to a high school naturalist club fo ...
. Industry collections are at the
Center for Wooden Boats
The Center for Wooden Boats (CWB) is a museum dedicated to preserving and documenting the maritime history of the Pacific Northwest area of the United States. CWB was founded by Dick Wagner in Seattle in the 1970s and has grown to include three si ...
and the adjacent
Northwest Seaport
Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center is a nonprofit organization in Seattle, Washington dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of Puget Sound and Northwest Coast maritime heritage, expressed through educational programs and exper ...
, and the
Museum of Flight
The Museum of Flight is a private non-profit air and space museum in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is located at the southern end of King County International Airport (Boeing Field) in the city of Tukwila, immediately south of Seattle. ...
. Regional ethnic collections include the
National Nordic Museum
The National Nordic Museum (previously Nordic Heritage Museum and then Nordic Museum) is a museum in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States, dedicated to the Nordic history, art, culture, and the heritage of the area's ...
, the
Wing Luke Asian Museum
The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience is a history museum in Seattle, Washington, United States, which focuses on the culture, art and history of Asian Pacific Americans. It is located in the city's Chinatown-Internationa ...
, and the Northwest African American Museum. Seattle has artist-run galleries, including ten-year veteran Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery.
The
Seattle Great Wheel
The Seattle Great Wheel is a 53-meter tall giant Ferris wheel at Pier 57 on Elliott Bay in Seattle, Washington. At an overall height of , it was the tallest Ferris wheel on the West Coast of the United States when it opened in June 2012.
Openi ...
, one of the largest
Ferris wheel
A Ferris wheel (also called a Giant Wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondolas, capsule ...
s in the US, opened in June 2012 as a new, permanent attraction on the city's waterfront, at
Pier 57
Pier 57 is a long pier located in the Hudson River on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Opened in December 1954, it sits at the end of West 15th Street on Eleventh Avenue (West Side Highway), just south of the Chelsea Piers spor ...
community centers
Community centres, community centers, or community halls are public locations where members of a community tend to gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. They may sometimes be open for the whole co ...
for recreation, including Rainier Beach, Van Asselt, Rainier, and Jefferson south of the Ship Canal and Green Lake, Laurelhurst, Loyal Heights north of the Canal, and Meadowbrook.
Woodland Park Zoo
Woodland Park Zoo is a wildlife conservation organization and zoological garden located in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the recipient of over 65 awards across multiple categories, and had served appr ...
opened as a private menagerie in 1889 but was sold to the city in 1899. The
Seattle Aquarium
The Seattle Aquarium is a public aquarium in Seattle, Washington, United States, located on Pier 59 on the Elliott Bay waterfront. It opened in 1977 and has been accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).
History
Plans for a ci ...
has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977 (undergoing a renovation in 2006). The
Seattle Underground
The Seattle Underground is a network of underground passageways and basements in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. They were located at ground level when the city was built in the mid-19th century but fell ...
Tour is an exhibit of places that existed before the Great Fire.
Since the middle 1990s, Seattle has experienced significant growth in the cruise industry, especially as a departure point for Alaska cruises. In 2008, a record total of 886,039 cruise passengers passed through the city, surpassing the number for Vancouver, BC, the other major departure point for Alaska cruises.
Religion
According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, the largest religious groupings are
Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...
Hindus
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
(1%),
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
(1%) and a variety of other religions have smaller followings. According to the same study by the Pew Research Center, about 34% of Seattleites are
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
, and 15% are
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
. Meanwhile, 6% of the residents in Seattle call themselves
agnostics
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...
, while 10% call themselves
atheists
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
.
Sports
Seattle has four major men's
professional sports
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought l ...
teams: the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
(MLB)'s
Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...
, the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
(NHL)'s
Seattle Kraken
The Seattle Kraken are a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle. The Kraken compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference and began play during the league's 2021–22 season. ...
Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is an American professional basketball league. It is composed of twelve teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the Natio ...
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...
, and
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...
and
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
.
The Seattle Seahawks entered the National Football League in 1976 as an expansion team and have advanced to the Super Bowl three times: 2005,
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...
and
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
. The team played in the Kingdome until it was imploded in 2000 and moved into Qwest Field (now
Lumen Field
Lumen Field is a multi-purpose stadium in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located in the city's SoDo neighborhood, it is the home field for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL), the Seattle Sea Dragons of the XFL, t ...
) at the same site in 2003. The Seahawks lost
Super Bowl XL
Super Bowl XL was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion f ...
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
, but won
Super Bowl XLVIII
Super Bowl XLVIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos and National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for th ...
in 2013 by defeating the
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquar ...
43–8 at
MetLife Stadium
MetLife Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 5 mi (8 km) west of New York City. Opened in 2010 to replace Giants Stadium, it serves as the home for the New York Giants a ...
. The team advanced to the Super Bowl the following year, but lost to the New England Patriots in
Super Bowl XLIX
Super Bowl XLIX was an American football game played to determine the champions of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2014 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots defeated the National Football Conf ...
on a last-minute play. Seahawks fans have set stadium noise records on several occasions and are collectively known as the " 12th Man".
Seattle Sounders FC has played in Major League Soccer since 2009, sharing Lumen Field with the Seahawks, as a continuation of earlier teams in the lower divisions of American soccer and the original North American Soccer League. The team set various attendance records in its first few seasons, averaging over 43,000 per match and placing themselves among the top 30 teams internationally. The Sounders have won the
MLS Supporters' Shield
The Supporters' Shield is an annual award given to the Major League Soccer team with the best regular season record, as determined by the MLS points system. The Supporters' Shield has been annually awarded at the MLS Supporters' Summit since ...
2014
File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...
. The Sounders won their first
MLS Cup
The MLS Cup is the annual championship game of Major League Soccer (MLS) and the culmination of the MLS Cup Playoffs. The game is held in November and pits the winner of the Eastern Conference Final against the winner of the Western Conferen ...
after defeating
Toronto FC
Toronto Football Club (commonly known as Toronto FC or TFC) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Toronto. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home matches at BM ...
5–4 in a
penalty shootout
The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...
, in
MLS Cup 2016
MLS Cup 2016 was the 21st edition of the MLS Cup, the championship match of Major League Soccer (MLS), played on December 10, 2016. The soccer match was hosted at BMO Field in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and contested by Toronto FC and Seattle ...
; the team would go on to finish as runners-up to Toronto FC in the following cup.
Lumen Field hosted the 2009 MLS Cup, played between
Real Salt Lake
Real Salt Lake, often shortened to RSL, is an American professional soccer franchise based in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. The club competes as a member club of Major League Soccer (MLS) in the Western Conference. RSL began play in 2 ...
and the
Los Angeles Galaxy
LA Galaxy, also known as the Los Angeles Galaxy, are an American professional soccer club based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Galaxy competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), as a member of the Western Conference. The club began pla ...
in front of 46,011 spectators. The Sounders would play their first MLS Cup at Lumen Field in
2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
, once again against Toronto FC, and won the game 3–1, earning their second MLS Cup title in front of a club-record attendance of 69,274. The stadium also hosted the second leg of the
2022 CONCACAF Champions League Final
The 2022 CONCACAF Champions League Final was the final round of the 2022 CONCACAF Champions League, the 14th edition of the CONCACAF Champions League under its current name, and overall the 57th edition of the premier soccer club competition or ...
, played in front of 68,741 to break the tournament record; the Sounders became the first MLS team to win a continental title since 2000 and the first to win the modern Champions League. Seattle will be one of eleven US host cities for the
2026 FIFA World Cup
The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the 23rd FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international men's soccer championship contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournament will be jointly hosted by 16 cities in three ...
with matches played at Lumen Field and training facilities at Longacres in Tukwila.
Seattle's Major League Rugby team, the Seattle Seawolves, play at
Starfire Sports Complex
Starfire Sports is a multi-purpose stadium and sporting facility in Tukwila, Washington, United States. It is located on the banks of the Green River, just south of Seattle. The stadium is operated by the nonprofit corporation Starfire Sports an ...
in nearby Tukwila, a small stadium that is also used by the Sounders for their U.S. Open Cup matches. The team began play in 2018 and won the league's inaugural championship. They successfully defended the title in the 2019 season.
Seattle's professional sports history began at the start of the 20th century with the PCHA's
Seattle Metropolitans
The Seattle Metropolitans were a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle, Washington, which played in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) from 1915 to 1924. During their nine seasons, the Metropolitans were the PCHA's most successful ...
, which in 1917 became the first American hockey team to win the Stanley Cup.
Seattle was awarded a Major League Baseball franchise, the Seattle Pilots, in 1969. The team played at Sick's Stadium in
Mount Baker
Mount Baker (Lummi: '; nok, Kw’eq Smaenit or '), also known as Koma Kulshan or simply Kulshan, is a active glacier-covered andesitic stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the North Cascades of Washington in the United States. Mount ...
for one season before relocating to
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
and becoming the Milwaukee Brewers. The city, alongside the county and state governments, sued the league and was offered a second expansion team, the
Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...
, as settlement.
The Mariners began play in 1977 at the Kingdome, where the team struggled for most of its time. Finding success in the mid-to-late 1990s saved the team from being relocated and allowed them to move to a purpose-built baseball stadium,
T-Mobile Park
T-Mobile Park is a retractable roof stadium in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners and has a seating capacity of 47,929. It is in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood, near the western t ...
(formerly
Safeco Field
T-Mobile Park is a retractable roof stadium in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners and has a seating capacity of 47,929. It is in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood, near the western ...
), in 1999. The Mariners have never reached a
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
and only appeared in the MLB playoffs five times, mostly between 1995 and 2001, but had Hall of Fame players and candidates like Ken Griffey Jr.,
Randy Johnson
Randall David Johnson (born September 10, 1963), nicknamed "The Big Unit", is an American photographer and former professional baseball pitcher who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (1988–2009) for six teams, primarily the Seattle M ...
Alex Rodriguez
Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez (born July 27, 1975), nicknamed "A-Rod", is an American former professional baseball shortstop and third baseman, businessman and philanthropist. Rodriguez played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the ...
. The team tied the all-time MLB single regular season wins record in 2001 with 116 wins. From 2001 to 2022, the Mariners failed to qualify for the playoffs—the longest active postseason drought in major North American sports, at 20 seasons.
From 1967 to 2008, Seattle was home to the
Seattle SuperSonics
The Seattle SuperSonics (commonly known as the Seattle Sonics) were an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The SuperSonics competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Western Confe ...
of the
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
(NBA). A frequent playoff participant, the Sonics were the 1978–79 NBA champions, and also contended for the championship in 1978 and 1996. Following a team sale in 2006, a failed effort to replace the aging
KeyArena
Climate Pledge Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located north of Downtown Seattle in the entertainment complex known as Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World's Fair, for which it was ori ...
, and settlement of a lawsuit to hold the team to the final two years of its lease with the city, the SuperSonics relocated to
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
and became the
Oklahoma City Thunder
The Oklahoma City Thunder are an American professional basketball team based in Oklahoma City. The Thunder compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team plays i ...
Sacramento Kings
The Sacramento Kings are an American professional basketball team based in Sacramento, California. The Kings compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Pacific Division. The Kings are the oldest ...
franchise and relocate it to Seattle as a resurrected Sonics squad was denied by the NBA board of governors.
The Seattle Thunderbirds hockey team plays in the Canadian major-junior Western Hockey League and are based in the Seattle suburb of Kent, Washington, Kent. Seattle successfully applied for a new expansion team with the
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...
called the
Seattle Kraken
The Seattle Kraken are a professional ice hockey team based in Seattle. The Kraken compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference and began play during the league's 2021–22 season. ...
, who began play in 2021. A major renovation of the SuperSonics' former home arena, KeyArena (now Climate Pledge Arena) began in 2018 to accommodate the NHL team. The NHL ownership group reached its goal of 10,000 deposits within 12 minutes of opening a ticket drive, which later increased to 25,000 in 75 minutes.
The city hosted the OL Reign, Seattle Reign FC, a founding member of the National Women's Soccer League, from 2014 to 2018. Formed in 2012, it was named in honor of the Seattle Reign (basketball), Seattle Reign, a women's professional basketball team that played from 1996 to 1998 in the American Basketball League (1996–1998), American Basketball League, a precursor to the WNBA. The club played at Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila for the league's inaugural 2013 season before moving to Seattle Center's Memorial Stadium (Seattle), Memorial Stadium in 2014. Under new management, the team moved to Tacoma's Cheney Stadium in 2019, playing as the Reign FC. In 2020, OL Groupe, the parent company of French clubs Olympique Lyonnais and Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, became the team's majority owner and rebranded the club as OL Reign. The team moved back to Seattle in 2022 and currently plays in Lumen Field.
Seattle also fielded the Seattle Sea Dragons of the XFL (2020), XFL, who played at Lumen Field in 2020. The league suspended operations five weeks into its inaugural season due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, COVID-19 pandemic, eventually filed for bankruptcy, and had its assets sold. The Sea Dragons will return in the 2023 XFL season.
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game was held in Seattle twice, first at the Kingdome in 1979 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, 1979 and again at Safeco Field in 2001 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, 2001. The NBA All-Star Game was also held in Seattle twice: the first in 1974 NBA All-Star Game, 1974 at the Seattle Center Coliseum and the second in 1987 NBA All-Star Game, 1987 at the Kingdome.
Seattle also boasts two collegiate sports teams based at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
and Seattle University, both competing in NCAA Division I for various sports. The University of Washington's athletic program, nicknamed the Washington Huskies, Huskies, competes in the Pac-12 Conference, and Seattle University's athletic program, nicknamed the Seattle Redhawks, Redhawks, mostly competes in the Western Athletic Conference. The Huskies teams use several facilities, including the 70,000-seat Husky Stadium for Washington Huskies football, football and the Hec Edmundson Pavilion for basketball and volleyball. The two schools have basketball and soccer teams that compete against each other in non-conference games and have formed a local rivalry due to their sporting success.
Parks and recreation
Seattle's mild, temperate, marine climate allows year-round outdoor recreation, including walking, cycling, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, motor boating, sailing, team sports, and swimming. In town, many people walk around Green Lake (Seattle), Green Lake, through the forests and along the bluffs and beaches of Discovery Park (Seattle), Discovery Park (the largest park in the city) in Magnolia, Seattle, Magnolia, along the shores of Myrtle Edwards Park on the Downtown waterfront, along the shoreline of Lake Washington at Seward Park (Seattle), Seward Park, along Alki Beach in West Seattle, or along the Burke-Gilman Trail. Gas Works Park features the preserved superstructure of a coal gasification plant closed in 1956. Located across Lake Union from downtown, the park provides panoramic views of the Seattle skyline. Also popular are hikes and skiing in the nearby Cascade or Olympic Mountains and kayaking and sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. In 2005, ''Men's Fitness'' magazine named Seattle the physical fitness, fittest city in the United States.
Government and politics
Seattle is a charter city, with a Mayor–council government, mayor–council form of government. From 1911 to 2013, Seattle's nine city councillors were elected at large, rather than by geographic subdivisions. For the 2015 election, this changed to a hybrid system of seven district members and two at-large members as a result of a ballot measure passed on November 5, 2013. The only other elected offices are the district attorney, city attorney and Municipal Court judges. All city offices are officially Non-partisan democracy, non-partisan. Like some other parts of the United States, government and laws are also run by a series of ballot initiatives (allowing citizens to pass or reject laws), referendums (allowing citizens to approve or reject legislation already passed), and propositions (allowing specific government agencies to propose new laws or tax increases directly to the people).
Seattle is widely considered one of the most socially liberal cities in the United States, even surpassing Portland. In the 2012 U.S. general election, a majority of Seattleites voted to approve Referendum 74 and legalize gay marriage in Washington state. In the same election, an overwhelming majority of Seattleites also voted to approve the legalization of the recreational use of cannabis (drug), cannabis in the state. Like much of the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...
(which has the lowest rate of church attendance in the United States and consistently reports the highest percentage of atheism), church attendance, religious belief, and political influence of religious leaders are much lower than in other parts of America. Seattle's political culture is very liberal and Progressivism in the United States, progressive for the United States, with over 80% of the population voting for the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party. All precincts in Seattle voted for Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama in the 2012 United States presidential election, 2012 presidential election. In partisan elections for the Washington State Legislature and United States Congress, nearly all elections are won by Democrats. Although local elections are nonpartisan, most of the city's elected officials are known to be Democrats.
In 1926, Seattle became the first major American city to elect a female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes. It has also elected an openly gay mayor, Ed Murray (Washington politician), Ed Murray, and a third-party socialist councillor, Kshama Sawant. For the first time in United States history, an openly gay black woman was elected to public office when Sherry Harris was elected as a Seattle city councillor in 1991. In 2015, the majority of the city council was female.
Federally, Seattle is split between two congressional districts. Most of the city is in Washington's 7th congressional district, represented by Democrat Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman elected to Congress. She succeeded 28-year incumbent and fellow Democrat Jim McDermott. Part of southeastern Seattle is in the Washington's 9th congressional district, 9th District, represented by Democrat Adam Smith (Washington politician), Adam Smith.
Bruce Harrell was elected as mayor in the 2021 Seattle mayoral election, 2021 mayoral election, succeeding Jenny Durkan, and took office on January 1, 2022. The mayor's office also includes three deputy mayors, appointed to advise the mayor on policies. As of 2022, the city's deputy mayors are Monisha Harrell, Tiffany Washington, and Kendee Yamaguchi.
Education
Of the city's population over the age of 25, 53.8% (vs. a national average of 27.4%) hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and 91.9% (vs. 84.5% nationally) have a high school diploma or General Educational Development, equivalent. A 2008 United States Census Bureau survey showed that Seattle had the highest percentage of college and university graduates of any major U.S. city. The city was listed as the most literate of the country's 69 largest cities in 2005 and 2006, the second most literate in 2007 and the most literate in 2008 in studies conducted by Central Connecticut State University.
Seattle Public Schools is the school district for the vast majority of the city. That school district desegregated without a court order but continue to struggle to achieve racial balance in a somewhat ethnically divided city (the south part of town having more ethnic minorities than the north). In 2007, Seattle's racial tie-breaking system was struck down by the United States Supreme Court, but the ruling left the door open for desegregation formulae based on other indicators (e.g., income or socioeconomic class). A very small portion of the city is within the Highline School District.
The public school system is supplemented by a moderate number of private schools: Five of the private high schools are Catholic Church, Catholic, one is Lutheranism, Lutheran, and six are secular.
Seattle is home to the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
, as well as the institution's professional and continuing education unit, the University of Washington Educational Outreach. The 2017 ''U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the University of Washington at No. 11 in the world. The UW receives more federal research and development funding than any public institution. Over the last 10 years, it has also produced more Peace Corps volunteers than any other U.S. university. Seattle also has a number of smaller private universities including Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University, the former a Jesuit Catholic institution, the latter a Free Methodist institution. The Seattle Colleges District operates three colleges: North Seattle College, Seattle Central College, and South Seattle College. Universities aimed at the working adult are the City University of Seattle, City University and Antioch University. Seminaries include Western Seminary and a number of arts colleges, such as Cornish College of the Arts, Pratt Fine Arts Center. In 2001, ''Time'' magazine selected Seattle Central Community College as community college of the year, saying that the school "pushes diverse students to work together in small teams".
Media
, Seattle has one major daily newspaper, ''The Seattle Times''. The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'', known as the ''P-I'', published a daily newspaper from 1863 to March 17, 2009, before switching to a strictly on-line publication. There is also the ''Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce'', and the University of Washington publishes ''The Daily of the University of Washington, The Daily'', a student-run publication, when school is in session. The most prominent weeklies are the ''Seattle Weekly'' and ''The Stranger (newspaper), The Stranger''; both consider themselves alternative newspaper, "alternative" papers. The weekly LGBT newspaper is the ''Seattle Gay News''. ''Real Change'' is a weekly street newspaper that is sold mainly by homeless persons as an alternative to begging, panhandling. There are also several ethnic newspapers, including ''The Facts (Seattle), The Facts'', ''Northwest Asian Weekly'' and the ''International Examiner'' as well as numerous neighborhood newspapers.
Seattle is also well served by television and radio, with all major U.S. networks represented, along with at least five other English-language stations and two Spanish-language stations. Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 (CBC Television, CBC) from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Non-commercial radio stations include NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9 and KNKX 88.5 (Tacoma), as well as classical music station KING-FM 98.1. Other non-commercial stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with the UW), community radio KBCS-FM 91.3 (affiliated with Bellevue College), and high school radio KNHC-FM 89.5, which broadcasts an electronic dance music radio format, is owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School (Washington), Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are available through Internet radio, with KEXP in particular being a pioneer of Internet radio. Seattle also has numerous commercial radio stations. In a March 2012 report by the consumer research firm Arbitron, the top FM stations were KRWM (adult contemporary format), KIRO-FM (news/talk), and KISW (active rock) while the top AM stations were KNWN (AM), KOMO (all news), KJR (AM) (sports radio, all sports), KIRO (AM) (all sports).
Seattle-based online magazines Worldchanging and Grist (magazine), Grist.org were two of the "Top Green Websites" in 2007 according to TIME.
Infrastructure
Health systems
The University of Washington is consistently ranked among the country's leading institutions in medical research, earning special merits for programs in neurology and neurosurgery. Seattle has seen local developments of modern paramedic services with the establishment of Medic One in 1970. In 1974, a ''60 Minutes'' story on the success of the then four-year-old Medic One paramedic system called Seattle "the best place in the world to have a heart attack". Three of Seattle's largest medical centers are located on First Hill. Harborview Medical Center, the public county hospital, is the only Level I trauma center, trauma hospital in a region that includes Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. Virginia Mason Medical Center and Swedish Medical Center's two largest campuses are also located in this part of Seattle, including the Virginia Mason Hospital. This concentration of hospitals resulted in the neighborhood's nickname "Pill Hill". Located in the Laurelhurst, Seattle, Laurelhurst neighborhood, Seattle Children's, formerly Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, is the pediatric referral center for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. The
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, formerly known as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and also known as Fred Hutch or The Hutch, is a cancer research institute established in 1975 in Seattle, Washington.
History
The center grew out o ...
has a campus in the Eastlake neighborhood. The University District is home to the University of Washington Medical Center which, along with Harborview, is operated by the University of Washington. Seattle is also served by a United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Affairs hospital on Beacon Hill, a third campus of Swedish in Ballard, and UW Medical Center - Northwest near Northgate Station (shopping mall), Northgate Station.
Transportation
The Seattle Street Railway, first streetcars appeared in 1889 and were instrumental in the creation of a relatively well-defined downtown and strong neighborhoods at the end of their lines. The advent of the automobile began the dismantling of rail in Seattle. Tacoma–Seattle railway service ended in 1929 and the Everett–Seattle service came to an end in 1939, replaced by automobiles running on the recently developed highway system. Rails on city streets were paved over or removed, and the opening of the Trolleybuses in Seattle, Seattle trolleybus system brought the end of Seattle Street Railway, streetcars in Seattle in 1941. This left an extensive network of privately owned buses (later public) as the only mass transit within the city and throughout the region.
King County Metro provides frequent stop bus service within the city and surrounding county, as well as the South Lake Union Streetcar line and the First Hill Streetcar line. Seattle is one of the few cities in North America whose bus fleet includes electric trolleybuses. Sound Transit provides an express bus service within the metropolitan area, two Sounder commuter rail lines between the suburbs and downtown, and its 1 Line (Sound Transit), 1 Line light rail line between the University of Washington and Angle Lake. Washington State Ferries, which manages the largest network of ferries in the United States and third largest in the world, connects Seattle to Bainbridge Island, Washington, Bainbridge and Vashon, Washington, Vashon Islands in Puget Sound and to Bremerton and Southworth, Washington, Southworth on the Kitsap Peninsula. King Street Station in Pioneer Square serves Amtrak intercity trains and Sounder commuter trains, and is located adjacent to the International District/Chinatown station, International District/Chinatown light rail station.
According to the 2007 American Community Survey, 18.6% of Seattle residents used one of the three public transit systems that serve the city, giving it the highest transit ridership of all major cities without heavy or light rail prior to the completion of Sound Transit's 1 Line. The city has also been described by Bert Sperling as the fourth most walkable U.S. city and by Walk Score as the sixth most walkable of the fifty largest U.S. cities.
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport , branded as SEA Airport and also referred to as Sea–Tac (), is the primary commercial airport serving the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It is in the city of SeaTac, which ...
, locally known as Sea-Tac Airport and located just south in the neighboring city of SeaTac, is operated by the Port of Seattle and provides commercial air service to destinations throughout the world. Closer to downtown, Boeing Field is used for general aviation, cargo flights, and testing/delivery of Boeing airliners. A secondary passenger airport, Paine Field, opened in 2019 and is located in Everett, north of Seattle. It is predominantly used by Boeing and their Boeing Everett Factory, large assembly plant located nearby.
The main mode of transportation, however, is the street system, which is laid out in a cardinal directions grid plan, grid pattern, except in the central business district where early city leaders Arthur A. Denny, Arthur Denny and Carson Boren insisted on orienting the plats relative to the shoreline rather than to true North. Only two roads, Interstate 5 in Washington, Interstate 5 and Washington State Route 99, State Route 99 (both limited-access highways) run uninterrupted through the city from north to south. From 1953 to 2019, State Route 99 ran through downtown Seattle on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated freeway on the waterfront. However, due to damage sustained during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake the viaduct was replaced by a tunnel. The Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel was originally scheduled to be completed in December 2015 at a cost of US$4.25 billion. The world's largest tunnel boring machine, named "Bertha (tunnel boring machine), Bertha", was commissioned for the project, measuring in diameter. The tunnel's opening was delayed to February 2019 due to issues with the tunnel boring machine, which included a two-year halt in excavation. Seattle has the 8th worst traffic congestion of all American cities, and is 10th among all North American cities according to Inrix.
The city has started moving away from the automobile and towards mass transit. From 2004 to 2009, the annual number of unlinked public transportation trips increased by approximately 21%. In 2006, voters in King County passed the Transit Now proposition, which increased bus service hours on high ridership routes and paid for five limited-stop bus lines called RapidRide. After rejecting a Roads and Transit, roads and transit measure in 2007, Seattle-area voters passed a transit only measure in 2008 to increase ST Express bus service, extend the Link light rail system, and expand and improve Sounder commuter rail service. A light rail line (now the 1 Line (Sound Transit), 1 Line) from downtown heading south to Sea-Tac Airport began service on December 19, 2009, giving the city its first rapid transit line with intermediate stations within the city limits. An extension north to the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
opened on March 19, 2016, followed by the Northgate, Seattle, Northgate extension in October 2021. Further extensions are planned to reach Lynnwood, Washington, Lynnwood to the north, Federal Way, Washington, Federal Way to the south, and Bellevue and Redmond to the east by 2025. Voters in the Puget Sound region approved an additional tax increase in November 2016 to expand light rail to West Seattle and Ballard as well as Tacoma, Everett, and Issaquah.
Utilities
Water and electric power are municipal services, provided by Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light respectively. Other utility companies serving Seattle include Puget Sound Energy (natural gas, electricity), Seattle Steam Company (steam), Waste Management, Inc and Recology CleanScapes (curbside recycling, composting, and solid waste removal), CenturyLink, Frontier Communications, Wave Broadband, and Comcast (telecommunications and television). About 90% of Seattle's hydroelectricity, electricity is produced using hydropower. Less than 2% of electricity is produced using fossil fuels.
International relations
Seattle has the following sister city, sister cities:
* Beersheba, Israel
* Bergen, Norway
* Cebu City, Philippines
* Chongqing, China
* Christchurch, New Zealand
* Daejeon, South Korea
* Galway, Republic of Ireland, Ireland
* Gdynia, Poland
* Haiphong, Vietnam
* Kaohsiung,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
* Tashkent, Uzbekistan
* Kobe, Japan
* Limbe, Cameroon, Limbe, Cameroon
* Mombasa, Kenya
* Nantes, France
* Pécs, Hungary
* Perugia, Italy
* Reykjavík, Iceland
* Sihanoukville (city), Sihanoukville, Cambodia
* Surabaya, Indonesia
See also
*
*
* List of people from Seattle
* List of television shows set in Seattle
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
*
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Further reading
*
*
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* Sanders, Jeffrey Craig. ''Seattle and the Roots of Urban Sustainability: Inventing Ecotopia'' (University of Pittsburgh Press; 2010) 288 pages; the rise of environmental activism
External links
*
Historylink.org history of Seattle and Washington
* [http://cdm15015.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15015coll4 Seattle Historic Photograph Collection from the Seattle Public Library]
Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project
Seattle, a National Park Service ''Discover Our Shared Heritage'' Travel Itinerary
{{Authority control
Seattle,
Cities in Washington (state)
Cities in King County, Washington
1853 establishments in Oregon Territory
Cities in the Seattle metropolitan area
County seats in Washington (state)
Isthmuses of the United States
Populated places established in 1853
Populated places on Puget Sound
Port settlements in Washington (state)