Willapa Bay () is a bay located on the southwest Pacific coast of

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 ...

state in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The Long Beach Peninsula separates Willapa Bay from the greater expanse of the Pacific Ocean. With over of surface area Willapa Bay is the second-largest riverine estuary on the Pacific coast of the continental United States. Early settlers called the bay Shoalwater Bay and this name is found on old maps and charts of the region. Willapa Bay is fairly shallow: more than half of its surface area lies in the intertidal zone, and half of the volume of water inside it enters and leaves with every tide. The bay is an

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

formed when the Long Beach Peninsula, a long sand spit from the Columbia River to the south, partially enclosed the estuaries of several smaller rivers. It is a

ria A ria (; gl, ría) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea. Definitions Typically rias have a dendritic, treelike outline although they ca ...

, which formed after the rise in sea level at the end of the last ice age flooded several small river valleys.NOAA-NWFSC Tech Memo-32: Status Review of Chum Salmon from Washington, Oregon, and California
NOAA The North River,

Willapa River The Willapa River is a river on the Pacific coast of southwestern Washington in the United States, approximately long. It drains an area of low hills and a coastal plain into Willapa Bay, a large estuary north of the mouth of the Columbia River. ...

, and Naselle River provide most of the freshwater input into the bay. Other rivers that empty into Willapa Bay include the

Bone River The Bone River is a short river in the U.S. state of Washington. It is about long.Calculated in Google Earth Course The Bone River originates in the hills of the southwestern part of Washington, close to the source of the North Fork Palix River ...

, Niawiakum River, Palix River, Cedar River and Bear River, among others. The bay is bordered by several smaller towns and unincorporated communities such as

Raymond Raymond is a male given name. It was borrowed into English from French (older French spellings were Reimund and Raimund, whereas the modern English and French spellings are identical). It originated as the Germanic ᚱᚨᚷᛁᚾᛗᚢᚾᛞ ( ...

and

South Bend South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total of 103,453 residents and is the fourt ...

, both on the Willapa River; Oysterville, Nahcotta, Bay Center and Tokeland are on the bay itself. The bay is entirely located within

Pacific County, Washington Pacific County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 23,365. Its county seat is South Bend, and its largest city is Raymond. The county was formed by the government of Oregon Territory in Febr ...

and is home to a local

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not ...

and seafood processing industry: approximately 9% of all oysters in the U.S. are grown there. Willapa Bay is known for its

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

and much of it, including the entirety of Long Island, has been set aside as part of the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge. The oyster beds help the ecosystem by providing habitats and filtering water, improving the quality of the water. The bay's ecology was threatened in the 1990s by the rapid spreading of Atlantic cordgrass (''Spartina alterniflora''), a non-native species of grass introduced possibly to help preserve wetlands and marsh areas, and possibly simply by accident as packing material in crates of oysters from the East Coast. The State of Washington has been spraying an herbicide thought not to threaten other species since about 2005, and the ''Spartina'' threat is much reduced.

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* * {{Authority control Bays of Washington (state) Estuaries of Washington (state) Bodies of water of Pacific County, Washington Washington placenames of Native American origin

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