File:Seattle-lakewashington-lakesammamish.PNG, 250px, The Eastside is to the right (east) of Seattle.
# rough city boundaries
poly 137 256 148 256 158 194 172 179 172 237 212 266 133 266 Renton
poly 140 122 140 150 138 156 155 195 172 180 175 215 207 220 208 187 221 135 185 122 Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French.
Bellevue or Belle Vue may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Bellevue, Queensland
* Bellevue, Western Australia
* Bellevue Hill, New South Wales
Canada
* Bellevue, Alberta
* Bellevue, Newfoundlan ...
rect 104 0 135 20 Kenmore
rect 87 10 103 38 Lake Forest Park
rect 134 53 173 118 Kirkland
rect 110 165 145 230 Mercer Island
Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located on an island of the same name in the southern portion of Lake Washington. Mercer Island is in the Seattle metropolitan area, with Seattle to its west and Bellevue t ...
rect 30 20 71 34 Shoreline
A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...
rect 165 0 235 50 Woodinville
rect 174 60 217 135 Redmond
# redmond watershed
rect 238 51 248 72 Redmond
rect 226 203 247 240 Issaquah
rect 215 114 248 199 Sammamish
rect 122 125 135 150 Medina
Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...
rect 41 238 133 266 Tukwila
# informational "i" at bottom left
desc bottom-left
The Eastside of the
King County, Washington
King County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of counties in Washington, most populo ...
area in the United States is a collective term for the
suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
s of
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
located on the east side of
Lake Washington
Lake Washington () is a large freshwater lake adjacent to the city of Seattle, Washington, United States.
It is the largest lake in King County, Washington, King County and the second largest natural lake in the state of Washington (state), Was ...
.
The most common definitions of the Eastside include the cities of
Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French.
Bellevue or Belle Vue may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Bellevue, Queensland
* Bellevue, Western Australia
* Bellevue Hill, New South Wales
Canada
* Bellevue, Alberta
* Bellevue, Newfoundlan ...
,
Kirkland,
Redmond,
Sammamish,
Issaquah,
Newcastle
Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...
, and
Mercer Island
Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located on an island of the same name in the southern portion of Lake Washington. Mercer Island is in the Seattle metropolitan area, with Seattle to its west and Bellevue t ...
.
The towns west of Bellevue, collectively known as the
Gold Coast, are usually considered part of the Eastside. These include
Beaux Arts Village,
Clyde Hill,
Hunts Point,
Medina
Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...
, and
Yarrow Point.
The Northshore cities of
Kenmore,
Bothell, and
Woodinville may be considered part of the Eastside, as each city contains portions that are east of the lake and south of its northernmost tip. Similarly, on the southeast tip of Lake Washington,
Renton may also be included.
The most expansive definitions of the Eastside can include cities in the
Snoqualmie Valley, including
Duvall,
Carnation
''Dianthus caryophyllus'' ( ), commonly known as carnation or clove pink, is a species of ''Dianthus'' native to the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean region. Its exact natural range is uncertain due to extensive cultivation over the last 2,00 ...
,
Fall City,
Snoqualmie, and
North Bend.
In politics, the area is sometimes referred to as the "suburban crescent".
History

Several Indigenous peoples have lived on the Eastside for thousands of years prior to American colonization. The various subgroups of the Hachuamish, as well as the
Sammamish, had many villages along the eastern coast of Lake Washington and the
Sammamish River.
Although they were more contained to the southernmost reaches of the Eastside, the modern-day site of
Renton was the center of
Duwamish society. Farther out in the Snoqualmie Valley, the
Snoqualmie were historically one of the most populous tribes in the Puget Sound region.
The cities on the Eastside mostly began as centers of logging or mining in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Once logged, the land was eventually cleared (primarily by Japanese immigrant labor) to support farming.
In the years prior to World War II they became centers of dairy and berry farming.
During the post-war boom, they became
bedroom communities for Seattle. This was made possible by the 1940 construction of the
Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge
The Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge is a floating bridge in the Seattle metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Washington. It is one of the Interstate 90 floating bridges that carries the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 across Lake Washi ...
across Lake Washington, as well as the later construction of the
Evergreen Point Floating Bridge
The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, also known as the 520 Bridge and officially the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge, is a floating bridge that carries Washington State Route 520 across Lake Washington from Seattle to its eastern suburbs ...
in 1963; additional traffic later led to the construction of an additional bridge paralleling the Murrow bridge,
Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, as well as the
replacement of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. Currently, the area is growing several
edge cities
An edge city is a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district, in what had previously been a suburban, residential or rural area. The term was popularized by the 1991 boo ...
.
Economy

Bellevue is the largest city on the Eastside and fifth largest in the state. A major technology center, the Eastside is home to many large high-tech companies, mainly in the
software
Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications.
The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...
and
wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...
industries, including
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
,
T-Mobile US
T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Its majority shareholder and namesake is the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile is the second largest wireless carrie ...
,
Nintendo of America
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles.
The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi founded the company to p ...
,
AT&T Mobility
AT&T Mobility, LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and Trade name, marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. Formed in April 2000 as Cingular Wireless LLC, It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, AT&T Inc. and provide ...
(formerly Cingular), the former
Western Wireless
Western Wireless Corporation was a cellular network operator that provided Mobile phone, mobile telecommunications service to subscribers in 19 western states in the United States, and seven other countries. Western Wireless marketed analog cellu ...
(now part of
Verizon Wireless
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the div ...
),
Vulcan Ventures,
180 Solutions and
InfoSpace
Infospace, Inc. was an American company that offered private label search engine, online directory, and provider of metadata feeds. The company's flagship metasearch site was Dogpile and its other notable consumer brands were WebCrawler and Me ...
. Companies like
Paccar
Paccar Inc. (stylized as PACCAR) is an American company primarily focused on the design and manufacturing of large commercial trucks through its subsidiaries DAF, Kenworth and Peterbilt sold across markets worldwide. The company is headquartere ...
,
Puget Sound Energy
Puget Sound Energy, Inc. (PSE) is an energy utility company based in the U.S. state of Washington that provides electrical power and natural gas to the Puget Sound region. The utility serves electricity to more than 1.2 million customers in I ...
,
Symetra Insurance,
Boeing
The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...
,
Verizon Wireless
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the div ...
,
Google
Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
,
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
,
Yahoo
Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
,
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney ( ; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Golden age of American animation, American animation industry, he introduced several develop ...
, and
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The name originates from Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, which in turn derives its name from Fox Fi ...
also have national, major divisional or regional offices in the Eastside. The Eastside is also a hub for biotech and medical companies including
Amgen
Amgen Inc. (formerly Applied Molecular Genetics Inc.) is an American multinational biopharmaceutical Corporation, company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. As one of the world's largest independent biotechnology companies, Amgen has a ...
,
Icos, and
Merck. Many local magnates, including
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...
,
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony Ballmer (; March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who served as chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He i ...
,
John Stanton, and
Craig McCaw
Craig McCaw (born August 11, 1949) is an American businessman and entrepreneur, a pioneer in the cellular phone industry. He is the founder of McCaw Cellular (now part of AT&T Mobility) and Clearwire Corporation (now part of T-Mobile via the Sp ...
, live in the Eastside's cities. The Eastside is also home to many video game and interactive media companies. These include
Bungie
Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company based in Bellevue, Washington, and a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was established in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones (programme ...
,
Valve
A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...
,
ArenaNet
ArenaNet, LLC is an American video game developer and subsidiary of NCSoft, founded in 2000 by Mike O'Brien (game developer), Mike O'Brien, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain and located in Bellevue, Washington. They are most notable as developers o ...
,
Sucker Punch
A sucker punch (American English), also known as a cheap shot, coward punch, one-punch attack, or king-hit (Australian English), is a punch thrown at the recipient unprovoked and without warning, allowing no time for preparation or defense on t ...
,
Monolith Productions
Monolith Productions, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Kirkland, Washington. The company was a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Games from August 2004 until its shutdown in 2025. It formerly published third-party games in the 199 ...
,
Sony Online Entertainment
Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in ...
,
Warner Brothers Entertainment,
Microsoft Game Studios
Xbox Game Studios (previously known as Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Microsoft Games) is an American video game publisher based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, spun out from an internal Games Group, fo ...
,
Epic Games
Epic Games, Inc. is an American Video game developer, video game and software development, software developer and video game publisher, publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney (game developer), Tim Sween ...
,
Unity Technologies
Unity Software Inc. (doing business as Unity Technologies) is an American video game software development company based in San Francisco. It was founded in Denmark in 2004 as Over the Edge Entertainment and changed its name in 2007. Unity Techn ...
and
DigiPen Institute of Technology
DigiPen Institute of Technology is a private for-profit university in Redmond, Washington. It also has campuses in Singapore and Bilbao, Spain. DigiPen offers bachelor's and master's degree programs.
History
In 1988, DigiPen was founded by ...
.
Kirkland hosts the annual
Junior League Softball World Series. Kirkland Signature is also the
own brand of
Costco
Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, and as of August 2024, Cos ...
, which founded its first warehouse in Seattle (#1), and operates from its corporate headquarters in the Eastside city of
Issaquah.
Demographics
For the purposes of population estimates, Eastside includes Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Sammamish, Issaquah, Newcastle, Mercer Island, Woodinville, Kenmore, and Bothell.
Transportation
Air
There are public and private airfields on the Eastside. Major facilities include:
*
Kenmore Air Harbor provides scheduled seaplane service to various points in the Northwest United States and southwest British Columbia.
*
Renton Municipal Airport
Renton Municipal Airport is a public use airport located in Renton, a city in King County, Washington, United States. The airport was renamed Clayton Scott Field in 2005 to celebrate the 100th birthday of Clayton Scott. The airport's northern ...
adjacent to the Boeing factory has a runway.
*
Bellevue Airfield was closed in 1983.
There is also a landing zone for
paragliding
Paragliding is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders: lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a harness or in a cocoon-like 'pod' suspended be ...
at the base of Tiger Mountain.
Rail
The
Woodinville Subdivision is a rail line built in the late 19th century. In 2008, the
Wilburton Tunnel was eliminated, severing the line. The right-of-way was purchased the same year by the
Port of Seattle
The Port of Seattle is a public agency that is in King County, Washington. It oversees the seaport of Seattle as well as Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. With a portfolio of properties ranging from parks and waterfront real estate, to ...
. Eastside cities and King County purchased portions of the Port property for conversion to a
rail trail
A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a Right of way#Rail right of way, railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corr ...
called the
Eastside Rail Corridor
The Eastside Rail Corridor, officially Eastrail, is a rail right of way where a rail trail has been under development in the Eastside suburbs of Seattle, Washington. The corridor follows the path of the former Woodinville Subdivision from ...
.
Road
The Eastside is connected to Seattle by the
Evergreen Point Floating Bridge
The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, also known as the 520 Bridge and officially the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge, is a floating bridge that carries Washington State Route 520 across Lake Washington from Seattle to its eastern suburbs ...
from Medina (
State Route 520) and the
Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge
The Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge is a floating bridge in the Seattle metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Washington. It is one of the Interstate 90 floating bridges that carries the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 across Lake Washi ...
and
Third Lake Washington Bridge
The Third Lake Washington Bridge, officially the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, is a Pontoon bridge, floating bridge in the Seattle metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. It is one of the Interstate 90 floating ...
from Bellevue via Mercer Island (
Interstate 90
Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain states, Mountain West, Great Pla ...
). It is also served by
Interstate 405, a loop route of
Interstate 5
Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels thro ...
that runs to the east of Lake Washington from
Tukwila to
Lynnwood
Lynnwood is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. The city is part of the Seattle metropolitan area and is located north of Seattle and south of Everett, near the junction of Interstate 5 and Interstate 405. It is the four ...
.
References
{{coord, 47, 36, N, 122, 10, W, format=dms, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-WA
Seattle metropolitan area
Geography of King County, Washington