Seattle

I

Introduction

Seattle, city in west central Washington State. The seat of King County, Seattle is the largest city in Washington and the hub of the sprawling metropolitan region of Greater Seattle. The region grew rapidly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, reflecting the success of local high-technology industries. These industries included aerospace, software, computer and electronic equipment, medical devices and biotechnology, and telecommunications.

Seattle is located on Elliott Bay in Puget Sound, 182 km (113 mi) south of the border with Canada. The city sits on a stretch of rolling land between Puget Sound and Lake Washington and is surrounded by high mountains and sparkling water. City residents look west to the mountains of Olympic National Park, east to the Cascade Range, and south to Mount Rainier (4,392 m/14,410 ft). Lake Washington and Lake Union, which lies within the Seattle city limits, are connected to Puget Sound by the Lake Washington Ship Canal. The canal threads east and west through the city, and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks enable seagoing vessels to traverse the different water levels from the higher freshwater lakes to the lower saltwater bay.

Seattle was named in honor of Chief Sealth, the leader of the Native American tribes who befriended the American settlers that founded the city in 1851. The city has a mild climate, and people enjoy the outdoors year-round. Average temperature ranges are 2° to 7°C (35° to 45°F) in January and 13° to 24°C (55° to 75°F) in July. The city averages 940 mm (37 in) of rain annually.

II

Seattle and Its Metropolitan Area

The city of Seattle covers an area of 218 sq km (84 sq mi). Greater Seattle, or the Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (encompassing Snohomish, King, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, and Island counties), has a total area of 21,152 sq km (8,167 sq mi).

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Much of the historical flavor of Seattle is preserved in its downtown neighborhoods. The Pioneer Square district is home to Seattle’s oldest buildings, constructed after the great fire of 1889 that destroyed much of the city. Many of Pioneer Square’s historic buildings have been adapted to new uses, and the district is often filled with tourists, shoppers, and residents out on the town. Pioneer Square is also home to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, located in both Seattle and in Skagway, Alaska. A visitor’s center contains exhibits exploring the Klondike Gold Rush, which began in 1897, when would-be miners flocked to Seattle on their way to the goldfields.

Southeast of Pioneer Square is the International District. It is the city’s shopping and cultural center for many Asian Americans, including descendants of early Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino settlers, as well as more recent Vietnamese, Thai, and Cambodian immigrants. The International District is home to the Nippon Kan Theater, built in 1909, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a community landmark for Seattle residents of Japanese descent.

Stretching north from Pioneer Square, downtown Seattle overlooks the busy harbor and waterfront of Elliott Bay. The Smith Tower sits on the border between the Pioneer Square district and downtown. It opened in 1914 as Seattle’s first real skyscraper and remained the tallest building in the city for more than half a century. Today Seattle’s bustling downtown includes city and county administrative facilities; the Seattle Public Library designed by architect Rem Koolhaas; the Washington State Convention and Trade Center; the restored Paramount and Fifth Avenue theaters; the Seattle Art Museum; and dozens of interesting galleries, shops, and restaurants. Pike Place Market, a busy and colorful market that opened in 1907, offers fresh ingredients to Seattle’s cooks and charms the city’s visitors with its shops and market stalls.

North of downtown Seattle is the Denny Regrade, one of many areas that were filled and leveled by the removal—or regrading—of hills in Seattle in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was decided early on that Seattle’s hills would seriously hinder expansion, so the city began an enormous program of regrading in 1876, leveling and filling in First Avenue. In the early 1900s engineers used steam shovels and huge amounts of water pumped from Elliott Bay to completely flatten Denny Hill. The dirt was transported to the waterfront and dumped in the bay.

The Regrade is a mixed-use area stretching north to Lake Union. It includes low-rise office buildings; warehouses and light manufacturing facilities; and a sprinkling of apartments, condominiums, and restaurants. Southwest of the Denny Regrade is the neighborhood of Belltown. Named for founder William Bell, Belltown was originally a separate settlement from Seattle; today it is a distinctive downtown neighborhood, offering high-rise condominiums overlooking Elliott Bay in a unique community of galleries, bookstores, and trendy restaurants. Just north and east of Belltown is Seattle Center, which was the site of Seattle’s 1962 world’s fair, Century 21. The center is now a major cultural complex and houses performance spaces, shops, museums, and an amusement park; it also plays host to a number of annual festivals. The distinctive Space Needle marks Seattle Center, which is connected to downtown Seattle by a monorail. Adjacent to the Space Needle is the Experience Music Project, a museum devoted to rock music and designed by architect Frank Gehry.

To the west of downtown Seattle is the West Seattle peninsula, separated from the city by the Duwamish Waterway and by Harbor Island. Harbor Island is an artificial island of nearly 160 hectares (400 acres) fringed by wharves and cranes and covered by warehouses and railroad yards. It is the Port of Seattle’s major point of entry for cargo transferred from oceangoing vessels to trucks and railcars. At West Seattle’s westernmost tip is Alki Point, where the Denny party, the settlers who founded Seattle, first landed.

Queen Anne Hill, north of downtown, was long isolated by its steep ascent but emerged as a fashionable residential area at the close of the 19th century. North of Queen Anne Hill and across the Lake Washington Ship Canal, Ballard was originally settled by Scandinavian immigrants. Annexed to Seattle in 1907, Ballard today is a residential neighborhood with a strong Nordic heritage.

To the east from Ballard along the north side of the Ship Canal, the neighborhoods of Fremont, Wallingford, and the University District stretch to the University of Washington. The Green Lake neighborhood, just north of Fremont, includes Woodland Park Zoo and Green Lake, a popular city park with picnic grounds and playfields. North Seattle’s many residential neighborhoods such as Greenwood, Maple Leaf, Wedgwood, and Lake City run north to 145th Street, the city’s northern boundary.

Heading south from the University of Washington, the lakefront neighborhoods of Madison Park, Madrona, Leschi, Mount Baker, and Seward Park look east to the city of Bellevue and Mercer Island, a residential island in Lake Washington. West and inland, Capitol Hill, the Central District, and Beacon Hill run north-south, parallel to downtown. Capitol Hill boasts some of the most beautiful older neighborhoods in the city; Volunteer Park, which is home to the Seattle Asian Art Museum and the Volunteer Park Conservatory, sits atop Capitol Hill.

The Central District is the historic heart of the African American community in Seattle; the area also encompasses the heritage of Jackson Street’s vibrant jazz culture. During the 1940s the Seattle jazz scene fostered the careers of musicians such as Quincy Jones and Ernestine Anderson and trained musicians who worked with famous jazz artists Lionel Hampton and Count Basie.

The local term Eastside refers to Seattle’s suburbs in King County, covering the towns and unincorporated area east of Lake Washington to the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. The area includes the suburban cities of Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Renton, and Issaquah. The Eastside has become home to dozens of high-technology industries including Microsoft Corporation, ATL Ultrasound, Nintendo of America, divisions of The Boeing Company, and many other firms. In the 1960s commuters headed to Seattle jobs from homes on the Eastside. Today, the “reverse commute” from Seattle homes to jobs on the Eastside is just as heavy, and both streams of traffic cross the same bridges over Lake Washington at the same times.

III

Population of Seattle

In 2000 the population of Seattle was 563,374, up from the 1990 census figure of 516,259. In 2006, it was estimated at 582,454. In 2006 the population of the Seattle metropolitan area was 3,263,497; the population of the Puget Sound urban region centered on Seattle was 3,554,760.

The city’s population has often increased or declined according to economic conditions. In the 1970s, for example, Greater Seattle depended heavily on the aerospace industry, and when the industry suffered an economic downturn, the city’s population shrank. But as Seattle’s economy rebounded and diversified, its population staged a comeback, increasing 5 percent between 1980 and 1990, and another 9 percent between 1990 and 2000.

Seattle is characterized by a diverse population. The 2000 census indicated that Seattle’s population was 70.1 percent white, 13.1 percent Asian, 8.4 percent black, 1 percent Native American, and 0.5 percent Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. People of mixed heritage or not reporting race were 6.8 percent of inhabitants. Hispanics, who may be of any race, made up 5.3 percent of the population.

In the 1970s the population of Asian Americans in the Seattle area soared, as immigrants and refugees from Southeast Asia flocked to the city. Between 1990 and 1996 the population of people of Asian and Pacific Island descent in King County—which includes Seattle—increased by 48 percent. During the same period, the population of African Americans increased by 19 percent, and that of Native Americans increased by 16 percent. Those who identify themselves as Hispanic increased by 32 percent.

IV

Education and Culture in Seattle

Seattle is the educational and cultural center of the surrounding area. In the city, the University of Washington, Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, and the Seattle Community Colleges provide higher education to students. In the Greater Seattle area, educational institutions include the University of Washington branch campuses in Tacoma and Bothell, Pacific Lutheran University and the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, and numerous community college systems.

The Seattle area offers an array of cultural opportunities in music, drama, and dance. Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts, founded in 1914, trains artists, actors, and playwrights, as does the University of Washington. Seattle has numerous performance spaces, including an opera house and several theaters at the Seattle Center and Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony. The city also has an active theater scene.

Seattle’s museums include the Seattle Art Museum, the Seattle Asian Art Museum, the Frye Art Museum, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and the Henry Art Gallery on the University of Washington campus, and the Museum of History and Industry. The Olympic Sculpture Park overlooks Elliott Bay. Other cultural institutions include the Wing Luke Asian Museum, the Pacific Science Center, the Northwest African American Museum, and Experience Music Project.

Seattle hosts a number of annual cultural and community festivals. Seafair is the city’s biggest summer festival. First held in 1950, it includes hydroplane races and a torchlight parade. The Northwest Folklife Festival takes place over Memorial Day weekend, and the Bumbershoot Arts Festival is held each Labor Day weekend. Many of the city’s communities hold neighborhood or ethnic fairs.

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