The Seattle area has been inhabited by Native Americans (such as the Duwamish, who had at least 17 villages around Elliot Bay) for at least 4,000 years before the first permanent European settlers.[14]Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, Oregon, on the schooner Exact at Alki Point on November 13, 1851.[15] The settlement was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay in 1852 and named "Seattle" in honor of Chief Seattle, a prominent 19th-century leader of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Seattle currently has high populations of Native Americans alongside Americans with strong Asian, African, European, and Scandinavian ancestry, and, as of 2015, hosts the fifth-largest LGBT community in the U.S.[16]
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 during the Klondike Gold Rush. The city grew after World War II, partly due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for its manufacturing of aircraft.
Beginning in the 1980s, the Seattle area developed into a technology center; Microsoft established its headquarters in the region. In 1994, Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle, and Alaska Airlines is based in SeaTac, Washington, serving Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, Seattle's international airport. The stream of new software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, which increased the city's population by almost 50,000 in the decade between 1990 and 2000.
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.[25] Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party.[26] Members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28, 1851.[27] 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.[27] 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,[27] naming this new settlement Duwamps.[28]
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".[29][30] 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.[31]
The name "Seattle" appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23, 1853, when the first plats 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.[27][35] The corporate seal of the City of Seattle carries the date "1869" and a likeness of Chief Seattle in left profile.[36] That same year, Seattle acquired the epithet of the "Queen City", a designation officially changed in 1982 to the "Emerald City".[37]
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.[38]
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 won the nickname "Skid Road", supposedly after the timber skidding down the hill to Henry Yesler'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.[39] Like much of the U.S. West, Seattle experienced onflicts between labor and management and ethnic tensions that culminated in the anti-Chinese riots of 1885–1886.[40] This violence originated with unemployed whites who were determined to drive the Chinese from Seattle; anti-Chinese riots also occurred in Tacoma.
Seattle had achieved sufficient economic success when the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 destroyed the central business district. However, a far grander city center rapidly emerged in its place.[41] Finance company Washington Mutual, for example, was founded in the immediate wake of the fire.[42] The Panic of 1893 hit Seattle hard.[43]
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 and the Yukon. 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, and Olympia, all in the Puget Sound region, became competitors for exchange, rather than mother lodes for extraction, of precious metals.[44]
A September 1870 engraving of Seattle published in Harper's Magazine
The boom lasted 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 and Eddie Bauer.[42] Seattle brought in the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm to design a system of parks and boulevards.[45]
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, an early general strike in the country.[47] A 1912 city development plan by Virgil Bogue 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.[48]
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.[49]
Seattle was one of the major cities that benefited from programs such as the Works Progress Administration, CCC, Public Works Administration, and others.[50][51] The workers, mostly men, built roads, parks, dams, schools, railroads, bridges, docks, and even historical and archival record sites and buildings. Seattle faced significant unemployment, loss of lumber and construction industries as Los Angeles prevailed as the bigger West Coast city. Seattle had building contracts that rivaled New York City and Chicago, but also lost to Los Angeles. Seattle's eastern farm land faded due to Oregon's and the Midwest's, forcing people into town.[52][53]
Hooverville arose during the Depression, leading to Seattle's growing homeless population. Stationed outside Seattle, the Hooverville housed thousands of men but very few children and no women. With work projects close to the city, Hooverville grew and the WPA settled into the city.[54]
A movement of women arose from Seattle during the Great Depression, fueled in part by Eleanor Roosevelt's 1933 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.[55]
The Great Depression did not impact the University of Washington negatively. As schools across Washington lost funding and attendance, the university actually prospered during the time period as they focused on growing their student enrollment. While Seattle public schools were influenced by Washington's superintendent Worth McClure,[56] they still struggled to pay teachers and maintain attendance.[57]
Seattle was the home base of impresario Alexander Pantages who, starting in 1902, opened a number of theaters in the city exhibiting vaudeville acts and silent movies. He went on to become 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.[58]
War work again brought local prosperity during World War II, centered on the production of Boeing aircraft. The war dispersed the city's numerous Japanese-American businessmen due to the Japanese American internment. After the World War II, however, the local economy dipped. It rose again with Boeing's growing dominance in the commercial airliner market.[59] Seattle celebrated its restored prosperity and made a bid for world recognition with the Century 21 Exposition, the 1962 World's Fair, for which the Space Needle was built.[60]
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."[61]
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.[62] The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's Renton narrow-body plant and Everett wide-body plant.[63] The company's credit union for employees, BECU, remains based in the Seattle area and has been open to all residents of Washington since 2002.[64]
On March 20, 1970, twenty-eight people were killed when the Ozark Hotel was burned by an unknown arsonist.[65] The Wah Mee massacre in 1983 resulted in the killing of 13 people in an illegal gambling club in the Seattle Chinatown-International District.[66]
Seattle and its suburbs became home to a number of technology companies, including Amazon, F5 Networks, RealNetworks, Nintendo of America, and T-Mobile.[68] This success brought an influx of new residents with a population increase within city limits of almost 50,000 between 1990 and 2000,[69] and saw Seattle's real estate become some of the most expensive in the country.[70]
Seattle in this period attracted attention as home to the companies opened operations in or around the city. In 1990, the Goodwill Games were held in the city.[71] Three years later, in 1993, the APEC leaders was hosted in Seattle.[72] The 1990s also witnessed a growing popularity in grunge music, a sound that was largely developed in Seattle's independent music scene.[73]
In 1993, the movie Sleepless in Seattle brought the city further national attention,[74] as did the television sitcom Frasier. The dot-com boom caused a great frenzy among the technology companies in Seattle but the bubble ended in early 2001.[75][76]
In 1999, the World Trade Organization held its conference in Seattle, which was met with protest activity. The protests and police reactions to them largely overshadowed the conference itself.[77]
Another boom began as the city emerged from the Great Recession, commencing when Amazon moved its headquarters from North Beacon Hill to South Lake Union. The move initiated a historic construction boom which resulted in the completion of almost 10,000 apartments in Seattle in 2017, more than any previous year and nearly twice as many as were built in 2016.[79][80]
From 2010 to 2015, Seattle gained an average of 14,511 residents per year, with the growth strongly skewed toward the center of the city,[81] and unemployment dropped from roughly 9 percent to 3.6 percent.[82] 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.[82]
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. In modern times the surrounding area lends itself well to sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking year-round.[83][84]
Due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Seattle is in a major earthquake zone. On February 28, 2001, the magnitude 6.8Nisqually earthquake did significant architectural damage, especially in the Pioneer Square area (built on reclaimed land, as are the Industrial District and part of the city center), and caused one fatality.[89] Other strong earthquakes occurred on January 26, 1700 (estimated at 9 magnitude), December 14, 1872 (7.3 or 7.4),[90]April 13, 1949 (7.1),[91] and April 29, 1965 (6.5).[92] The 1965 quake caused three deaths in Seattle directly and one more by heart failure.[92] Although the Seattle Fault passes just south of the city center, neither it[93] nor the Cascadia subduction zone 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.[94]
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 142.5 square miles (369 km2),[95] 84 square miles (220 km2) of which is land and 58.1 square miles (150 km2) is water (41% of the total area).[1]
According to the Köppen climate classification system, Seattle has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb),[96][97][98] while under the Trewartha system, it is labeled an oceanic climate (Do).[99][100] It has cool, wet winters and mild, relatively dry summers, covering characteristics of both climate types.[101][102] 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).[103]
Temperature extremes are moderated by the adjacent Puget Sound, greater Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. Thus extreme heat waves are rare in the Seattle area, as are very cold temperatures (below about 15 °F; −9 °C). The Seattle area is the cloudiest region of the Continental United States, due in part to frequent storms and lows moving in from the adjacent Pacific Ocean. Seattle is cloudy 201 days out of the year and partly cloudy 93 days.[104] With many more "rain days" than other major American cities, Seattle has a well-earned reputation for frequent rain:[105] In an average year, there are 150 days in which at least 0.01 inches (0.25 mm) of precipitation falls, more days than in nearly all U.S. cities east of the Rocky Mountains.[106] 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 major U.S. cities like New York City, Miami, or Houston.
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Seattle's population historically has been predominantly white.[117] 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.[118] In 1960, whites constituted 91.6% of the city's population,[117] while in 2010 they constituted 69.5%.[119][120] 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 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 made up 3.9%, and speakers of other languages made up 2.5%.[citation needed]
Ethnic origins in SeattleMap of racial distribution in Seattle, 2010 U.S. Census. Each dot is 25 people: ⬤ White⬤ Black⬤ Asian⬤ Hispanic⬤ Other
Seattle's foreign-born population grew 40% between the 1990 and 2000 censuses.[121] The Chinese population in the Seattle area has origins in mainland China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan. 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 population of more than 55,000 residents,[122] as well as over 30,000 Somali immigrants.[123] The Seattle-Tacoma area is also home to one of the largest Cambodian communities in the United States, numbering about 19,000 Cambodian Americans,[124] and one of the largest Samoan communities in the mainland U.S., with over 15,000 people having Samoan ancestry.[119][125] 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.[126] According to a 2012 HistoryLink 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.[127]
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.[128] 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.[128] According to a 2024 study by Henley & Partners, the city of Seattle has an estimated 54,200 millionaires and 11 billionaires.[129]
It is estimated that King County has 8,000 homeless people on any given night, and many of those live in Seattle.[130] 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.[131]
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.[132] 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.[132] 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.[133] As a sign of increasing downtown core growth, the Downtown population crested to over 60,000 in 2009, up 77% since 1990.[134]
In 2021 Seattle experienced its first population decline in 50 years.[135]
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%.[136]
Seattle has a notably large lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. According to a 2006 study by UCLA, 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.[137] Greater Seattle also ranked second among major U.S. metropolitan areas, with 6.5% of the population identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual.[137] 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).[138] The Capitol Hill district has historically been the center of LGBT culture in Seattle.[139]
Economy
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Washington Mutual's last headquarters, the WaMu Center, now the Russell Investments Center, (center left), and its prior headquarters, Washington Mutual Tower, now the 1201 Third Avenue TowerThe corporate headquarters of online retailer Amazon, named Day 1 and located in Denny Triangle
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.[140][141] The Port of Seattle, which also operates Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, 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 in 2015 to form the Northwest Seaport Alliance.[142][143]
Although it was impacted by the Great Recession, Seattle has retained a comparatively strong economy, and is noted for start-up businesses, especially in green building and clean technologies.[144] In February 2010, the city government committed Seattle to become North America's first "climate neutral" city, with a goal of reaching net-zero per-capita greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.[145]
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 (#2), coffee chain Starbucks (#120), freight forwarder Expeditors International of Washington (#225), department store Nordstrom (#245), forest products company Weyerhaeuser (#354), online travel company Expedia Group (#404), and real-estate tech company Zillow (#424) .[146] Other Fortune 500 companies commonly associated with Seattle are based in nearby Puget Sound cities. Warehouse club chain Costco (#11), the largest retail company in Washington, is based in Issaquah. Microsoft (#14) is located in Redmond. Furthermore, Bellevue is home to truck manufacturer Paccar (#151).[146] Other major companies headquartered in the area include Nintendo of America in Redmond, T-Mobile US in Bellevue, and Providence Health & Services (the state's largest health care system and fifth-largest employer) in Renton. The city has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption;[147] coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks,[148]Seattle's Best Coffee,[149] and Tully's.[150] There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafés.[147][needs update]
Before moving its headquarters to Chicago and then ultimately Arlington County, Virginia, aerospace manufacturer Boeing (#60) was the largest company based in Seattle. Its largest division, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is still headquartered within the Puget Sound region.[151][e] The company also has large aircraft manufacturing plants in Everett and Renton; it remains the largest private employer in the Seattle metropolitan area.[152] In 2006 former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the biotechnology industry. Major redevelopment of the South Lake Union neighborhood is underway in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the city, joining biotech companies Corixa (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), Immunex (now part of Amgen), Trubion, and ZymoGenetics. Vulcan Inc., the holding company of billionaire Paul Allen, 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 for pandering to Allen's interests at taxpayers' expense.[153] In 2005, Forbes ranked Seattle as the most expensive American city for buying a house based on the local income levels.[154] 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.[155]
The 5th Avenue Theatre, built in 1926, stages Broadway-style musical shows[167] featuring both local talent and international stars.[168] Seattle has "around 100" theatrical production companies[169] and over two dozen live theatre venues, many of them associated with fringe theatre;[170][171] Seattle is probably second only to New York for number of equity theaters[172] (28 Seattle theater companies have some sort of Actors' Equity contract).[169]
In addition, the 900-seat Romanesque RevivalTown Hall on First Hill hosts numerous cultural events, especially lectures and recitals.[173]
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, Quincy Jones, Bumps Blackwell, Ernestine Anderson, and others.[174]
Seattle annually sends a team of spoken word slammers to the National Poetry Slam and considers itself home to such performance poets as Buddy Wakefield, two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champ;[176]Anis Mojgani, two-time National Poetry Slam Champ;[177] and Danny Sherrard, 2007 National Poetry Slam Champ and 2008 Individual World Poetry Slam Champ.[178] 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.[179]
The Seattle Great Wheel, one of the largest Ferris wheels in the US, opened in June 2012 as a new, permanent attraction on the city's waterfront, at Pier 57, next to Downtown Seattle.[202] The city also has many community centers 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.[203]
Since the mid-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.[207]
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A 2024 Household Pulse Survey from the United States Census Bureau estimated that 64 percent of adults in the Seattle area never attend religious services or attend less than once a year, the highest percentage among large U.S. metropolitan areas.[208]
A Originally founded in 1974, the MLS version of the Sounders franchise was legally re-incorporated in 2007 and entered the league for the 2009 season.
The Mariners began play in 1977 at the multi-purposeKingdome, where the team struggled for most of its time. Relative 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 (formerly Safeco Field), in 1999.[222][223] The Mariners have never reached a World Series 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, Ichiro Suzuki, and Alex Rodriguez.[224] The team tied the all-time MLB single regular season wins record in 2001 with 116 wins.[225] 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.[226]
Seattle Sounders FC has played in Major League Soccer since 2009, as the latest continuation of the original 1974 Sounders team of the North American Soccer League after an incarnation in the lower divisions of American soccer.[229] Sharing Lumen Field with the Seahawks, the team set various attendance records in its first few MLS seasons, averaging over 43,000 per match and placing themselves among the top 30 teams internationally.[230][231] The Sounders have won the MLS Supporters' Shield in 2014[232] and the U.S. Open Cup on four occasions: 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2014.[233] The Sounders won the first of their two MLS Cup titles in 2016, defeating Toronto FC 5–4 in a penalty shootout in Toronto,[234] before finishing as runners-up in a rematch against Toronto in MLS Cup 2017.
In 2019 the Sounders made their first-ever home-field appearance in MLS Cup, once again against Toronto FC, and won the game 3–1 to earn their second MLS Cup title in front of a club-record attendance of 69,274.[235] The stadium also hosted the second leg of the 2022 CONCACAF Champions League Final, played in front of 68,741 to break the tournament attendance record. The Sounders became the first MLS team to win a continental title since 2000 and the first to win the modern Champions League.[236]
Seattle has also been home to various minor-league professional teams, of which currently Ballard FC and West Seattle Junction FC of USL League 2 in soccer remain. Representing the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard, Ballard FC was founded in 2022 as an independent, semi-professional soccer team in the fourth-division USL League 2. The team is owned by a group led by former Sounders player Lamar Neagle and won its first national title in 2023. Ballard FC's primary home is the 1,000-seat Interbay Soccer Stadium (also home to Seattle Pacific University's and Ballard High School's soccer teams), but during that field's renovations in the 2024 season, Ballard will play out of Memorial Stadium at the Seattle Center.[256][257]West Seattle Junction FC, representing the neighborhood of West Seattle, joined USL League 2 during the 2024 season.[218]
The short-lived Seattle Sea Dragons, originally the Dragons, of the XFL played at Lumen Field in the league's inaugural season in 2020 prior to its suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[258] The Sea Dragons returned alongside the XFL in 2023 after the league's re-launch under new ownership.[259] The team folded prior to the 2024 season during the XFL's merger with the United States Football League to form the United Football League.[260]
Seattle also boasts two collegiate sports teams based at the University of Washington and Seattle University, both competing in NCAA Division I for various sports.[261] The University of Washington's athletic program, nicknamed the Huskies, competes in the Pac-12 Conference, and Seattle University's athletic program, nicknamed the Redhawks, mostly competes in the Western Athletic Conference. The Huskies teams use several facilities, including the 70,000-seat Husky Stadium for football and the Hec Edmundson Pavilion for basketball and volleyball.[262][263] 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.[261]
Seattle's mild, temperate marine climate allows year-round outdoor recreation, including walking, cycling, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, motorboating, sailing, team sports, and swimming.[268] In town, many people walk around Green Lake, through the forests and along the bluffs and beaches of 535-acre (2.2 km2) Discovery Park (the largest park in the city) in Magnolia, along the shores of Myrtle Edwards Park on the Downtown waterfront, along the shoreline of Lake Washington at Seward Park, along Alki Beach in West Seattle, or along the Burke-Gilman Trail.[citation needed]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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]
Seattle City Council consists of two at-large positions and seven district seats representing the areas shown from 2016 to 2023.
Seattle is a charter city, with a mayor–council form of government. From 1911 to 2013, Seattle's nine city councillors were elected at large, rather than by geographic subdivisions.[269] 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 city attorney and Municipal Court judges. All city offices are officially non-partisan.[270] 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).[271]
Seattle is widely considered one of the most socially liberal cities in the United States.[272] In the 2012 U.S. general election, a majority of Seattleites voted to approve Referendum 74 and legalize gay marriage in Washington state.[273] In the same election, an overwhelming majority of Seattleites also voted to approve the legalization of the recreational use of cannabis in the state.[274] Like much of the Pacific Northwest (which has the lowest rate of church attendance in the United States and consistently reports the highest percentage of atheism[275][276]), church attendance, religious belief, and political influence of religious leaders are much lower than in other parts of America.[277] Seattle's political culture is very liberal and progressive for the United States, with over 80% of the population voting for the Democratic Party. All precincts in Seattle voted for Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.[278] 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, the most notable exception being Seattle City AttorneyAnn Davison.[citation needed]
In 1926, Seattle became the first major American city to elect a female mayor, Bertha Knight Landes.[279] It has also elected an openly gay mayor, Ed Murray,[280] and a third-party socialist councillor, Kshama Sawant.[281] 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 councilor in 1991.[282][283] In 2015, the majority of the city council was female.[284]
In 2023, the city council voted to ban caste discrimination as part of the city's anti-discrimination laws. The ban is the first in the United States.[285]
Seattle lies within four districts on the King County Council: the 1st district includes the northeastern corner of the city; the 2nd district generally covers areas east of Interstate 5 and south of Northeast 65th Street; the 4th district consists of the northwestern neighborhoods of Ballard, Fremont, Magnolia, and Queen Anne; and the 8th district includes Downtown Seattle, First Hill, SODO, and West Seattle.[286] At the state level, Seattle is divided into six districts that each have one state senator and two state representatives.[287][288]
Federally, Seattle is split between two congressional districts. Most of the city is in 7th congressional district,[289] represented by Democrat Pramila Jayapal, the first Indian-American woman elected to Congress. She succeeded 28-year incumbent and fellow Democrat Jim McDermott.[290] Part of southeastern Seattle is in the 9th congressional district,[289] represented by Democrat Adam Smith since 1997.[291] The border between the two districts follows the Tukwila city limits around Boeing Field, Interstate 5, South Dearborn Street, 4th Avenue South, James Street, Madison Street, East Union Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and East Yesler Way.[289]
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(April 2021)
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 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.[292] 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.[293]
Seattle Public Schools is the school district for the vast majority of the city.[294] That school district desegregated without a court order[295] 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).[296] 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).[297] A very small portion of the city is within the Highline School District.[294]
The public school system is supplemented by a moderate number of private schools: Five of the private high schools are Catholic, one is Lutheran, and six are secular.[298]
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.[304] Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 (CBC) from Vancouver, British Columbia.[citation needed]
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. The university-run UW Medicine system encompasses several major local hospitals, including Harborview Medical Center, the public county hospital and the only Level I trauma hospital for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho.[307] Harborview and two other major hospitals—Virginia Mason Medical Center and Swedish Medical Center—are located on First Hill, which is nicknamed "Pill Hill" for its concentration of medical facilities.[308]
Seattle has seen local developments of modern paramedic services with the establishment of Medic One in 1970.[310] 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."[311] The city also has several pharmacy chains; these include Bartell Drugs, which was family-run in Seattle until its acquisition by Rite Aid in 2020. As of 2024[update], Seattle lacks a 24-hour retail pharmacy due to the closure of locations across several chains.[312][313]
The 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 Seattle trolleybus system brought the end of 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.[314]
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.[320] 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.[321][322]
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, 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, 25 miles (40 km) north of Seattle. It is predominantly used by Boeing and their large assembly plant located nearby.[323][324]
The main mode of transportation, however, is the street system, which is laid out in a cardinal directionsgrid pattern, except in the central business district where early city leaders Arthur Denny and Carson Boren insisted on orienting the plats relative to the shoreline rather than to true North.[325] The city's topography, formed by the recession of glaciers, created north–south troughs that did not allow east–west streets to be continuous;[326] only Madison Street runs uninterrupted from Elliott Bay to Lake Washington.[327] Only two roads, Interstate 5 and 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 2-mile (3.2 km) 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", was commissioned for the project, measuring 57 feet (17 m) in diameter. The tunnel's opening was delayed to February 2019 due to issues with the machine, which included a two-year halt in excavation.[328] Seattle has the 8th-worst traffic congestion of all American cities, and ranks 10th among all North American cities according to Inrix.[329]
The city has started moving away from the automobile and toward mass transit. From 2004 to 2009, the annual number of unlinked public transportation trips increased by approximately 21%.[330] 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.[331] After rejecting a 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.[332]
A Link light rail line (now the 1 Line) from downtown heading south to Sea-Tac Airport began service in 2009, giving the city its first rapid transit line with intermediate stations within the city limits. The line was first extended north to the University of Washington in March 2016,[333] followed by Northgate in October 2021,[334] and Lynnwood in August 2024.[335] A second line, the 2 Line opened in April 2024 between Bellevue and Redmond; it is planned to be extended into Seattle via the Interstate 90 floating bridge in late 2025.[336] Voters in the Puget Sound region approved an additional tax increase, part of the Sound Transit 3 package, in November 2016 to expand light rail to West Seattle and Ballard as well as Tacoma, Everett, and Issaquah.[337]
Seattle Public Utilities manages two tap water supply systems on the Cedar River and Tolt River.[339] These systems are fed by melted snowpack in the Cascade Mountains over the autumn and winter that fill reservoirs as they melt.[340] The city's wastewater system includes 1,422 miles (2,288 km) of sewers that reach treatment plants that discharge into Puget Sound; a 485-mile (781 km) network of separate tunnels for stormwater serve other treatment facilities.[341] Older areas of the city have a combined sewer system that dumps stormwater and untreated wastewater into Puget Sound during overflow events.[342]
Crime
2023 map of crimes committed in Seattle in each neighborhood
In 2023, Seattle had 5,000 violent crimes, and from 2013 to 2018 there was a slow increase in crimes, however it dipped in 2020, before spiking up again in 2021 and 2022. As of 2023 the city has a violent crime rate of 683 per 100,000 people, and 5,174 property crimes per 100,000 people.[343]
^November 13, 1851, is often referred to as the unofficial date of Seattle's founding, when much of the Denny Party arrived at Alki Point. However, the first White settlers to inhabit the area had already arrived in September, which included some members of the Denny clan. The modern city did not take shape until the following spring after much of the party abandoned Alki to move across the bay. The name "Seattle" didn't become official until May 23, 1853.
^Mean monthly maxima and minima (i.e. the highest and lowest temperature readings during an entire month or year) calculated based on data at said location from 1991 to 2020.
^Official records are restricted to SeaTac Airport from January 1945 onward.[107]
^Speidel, William C. (1967). Sons of the Profits or There's No Business Like Grow Business The Seattle Story 1851–1901. Nettle Creek. pp. 12–13. ISBN9780914890065. At the time, the Schooner "Exact" was outfitting in Portland for a voyage to Queen Charlotte Island with gold prospectors, and for a reasonable price the captain was willing to touch at Puget Sound en route. She started from Portland on November 5, 1851 and headed out over the Columbia River Bar after touching at Astoria two days later.
^"The people and their land". Puget Sound Native Art and Culture. Seattle Art Museum. July 4, 2003. Archived from the original on June 13, 2010. Retrieved April 21, 2006. (Publication date per "Native Art of the Northwest Coast: Collection Insight")
^Thomas R. Speer, ed. (July 22, 2004). "Chief Si'ahl and His Family". Duwamish Tribe. Archived from the original on February 13, 2009. Retrieved October 14, 2007. Includes bibliography.
^Kenneth G. Watson (January 18, 2003). "Seattle, Chief Noah". HistoryLink. Archived from the original on February 25, 2021. Retrieved October 14, 2007.
^Murray Morgan (1982) [First published 1951, 1982 revised and updated, first illustrated edition]. Skid Road: an Informal Portrait of Seattle. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. p. 20. ISBN978-0-295-95846-0.
^
Emmett Shear (Spring 2002). "Seattle: Booms and Busts". Yale University. Author has granted blanket permission for material from that paper to be reused in Wikipedia. Now at s:Seattle: Booms and Busts.
^Junius Rochester (October 7, 1998). "Yesler, Henry L." HistoryLink. Archived from the original on February 24, 2021. Retrieved October 1, 2007.
^George Kinnear (January 1, 1911). Anti-Chinese Riots At Seattle, Wn.. February 8, 1876. Archived from the original on February 24, 2021. Retrieved October 4, 2007. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Kinnear's article, originally appearing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was later privately published in a small volume.
^Greg Lange (June 8, 1999). "Billboard appears on April 16, 1971, near Sea–Tac, reading: Will the Last Person Leaving Seattle—Turn Out the Lights". HistoryLink. Archived from the original on July 18, 2016. Retrieved October 1, 2007.
The real estate agents were Bob McDonald and Jim Youngren, as cited at Don Duncan, Washington: the First One Hundred Years, 1889–1989 (Seattle: The Seattle Times, 1989), 108, 109–110; The Seattle Times, February 25, 1986, p. A3; Ronald R. Boyce, Seattle–Tacoma and the Southern Sound (Bozeman, Montana: Northwest Panorama Publishing, 1986), 99; Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 297.
^Basnet, Neetish (October 14, 2022). "Largest Tech Employers". Puget Sound Business Journal. Archived from the original on January 11, 2023. Retrieved December 11, 2022.
^David M. Ewalt (January 27, 2005). "The Bubble Bowl". Forbes. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2007. Ewalt refers to the advertising on Super Bowl XXXIV (January 2000) as "the dot-com bubble's Waterloo".
^Howard Morphy (1999). "Traditional and modern visual art of hunting and gathering peoples". In Richard B. Lee (ed.). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Cambridge University Press. p. 443. ISBN978-0-521-57109-8.
^"3 Concept and classification". Global ecological zoning for the global forest resources assessment 2000. Rome: UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Forestry Department. 2001. Archived from the original on July 21, 2010. Retrieved December 30, 2011.
^"Gross Metropolitan Product". U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. September 29, 2011. Archived from the original on September 7, 2024. Retrieved October 13, 2011.
^Tracy, Allison (August 11, 2006). "Master's spinoff is coming to the Pillow". The Berkshire Eagle. Pittsfield, Massachusetts. p. 35. Archived from the original on April 24, 2023. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
^"Home page". SYSO. Archived from the original on October 14, 2012. Retrieved October 21, 2007.
^ abBrendan Kiley (January 31, 2008). "Old Timers, New Theater". The Stranger. p. 27. Archived from the original on March 6, 2008. Retrieved January 9, 2009. "around 100 theater companies ... Twenty-eight have some sort of Actors' Equity contract ..."
^"Theater Calendar". The Stranger. October 18, 2007. p. 45. This lists 23 distinct venues in Seattle hosting live theater (in the narrow sense) that week; it also lists 7 other venues hosting burlesque or cabaret, and three hosting improv. In any given week, some theaters are "dark".
^"Home page". The Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair & Book Arts Show. Archived from the original on October 5, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2007.
^"Sakura-Con English-language site". Asia Northwest Cultural Education Association. Archived from the original on October 14, 2012. Retrieved October 25, 2007. Relevant information is on "Location" and "History" pages.
^"Religious Landscape Study". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. Archived from the original on November 9, 2015. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
^ abcdDrosendahl, Glenn (November 3, 2012). "Seattle Seahawks". HistoryLink. Archived from the original on December 16, 2018. Retrieved December 17, 2018.
^Pentz, Matt (September 18, 2014). "Sounders win 4th U.S. Open Cup". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
^Ethics and Elections Commission. "Seattle Form of Government". City of Seattle. Archived from the original on June 15, 2022. Retrieved October 3, 2007.
^Office of the City Clerk. "Mayor Bertha Knight Landes". City of Seattle. Archived from the original on September 7, 2024. Retrieved November 28, 2013.
^Tisa M. Anders (March 29, 2013). "Harris, Sherry D. (1957– )". BlackPast.org. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
^Public Transportation Fact Book(PDF) (57th ed.). American Public Transportation Association. April 2006. p. 14. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 10, 2012. Retrieved August 25, 2012. Public Transportation Fact Book(PDF) (62nd ed.). American Public Transportation Association. April 2011. p. 9. Archived from the original(PDF) on September 13, 2012. Retrieved August 25, 2012.
^"Transit Now". King County Department of Transportation. Archived from the original on December 30, 2011. Retrieved December 30, 2011.
Morgan, Murray (1982) [1951]. Skid Road: an Informal Portrait of Seattle (revised and updated, first illustrated ed.). Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. ISBN978-0-295-95846-0.
Ochsner, Jeffrey Karl, ed. (1998) [1994]. Shaping Seattle Architecture: A Historical Guide to the Architects. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. ISBN978-0-295-97366-1.
Klingle, Matthew (2007). Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-11641-0.
MacGibbon, Elma (1904). "Seattle, the city of destiny"(DJVU). Leaves of knowledge. Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection. Shaw & Borden. OCLC61326250.
Pierce, J. Kingston (2003). Eccentric Seattle: Pillars and Pariahs Who Made the City Not Such a Boring Place After All. Pullman, Washington: Washington State University Press. ISBN978-0-87422-269-2.
Sanders, Jeffrey Craig. Seattle and the Roots of Urban Sustainability: Inventing Ecotopia (University of Pittsburgh Press; 2010) 288 pages; the rise of environmental activism
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