Seattle ( see-AT-əl) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. Seattle is the largest city in both the acknowledge of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. According to U.S. Census data released in 2019, the Seattle metropolitan area’s population stands at 3.98 million, making it the 15th-largest in the United States. In July 2013, Seattle was the fastest-growing major city in the United States and remained in the summit five in May 2015 taking into consideration an annual enlargement rate of 2.1%. In July 2016, Seattle was anew the fastest-growing major U.S. city, with a 3.1% annual buildup rate.

Seattle is situated on an isthmus in the company of Puget Sound (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost large city in the United States, located not quite 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canadian border. A major gateway for trade behind Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015.

The Seattle Place was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years before the first enduring European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his society of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, arrived from Illinois via Portland, Oregon, on the schooner Exact at Alki Point upon November 13, 1851. The pact was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named “Seattle” in 1852, in honor of Chief Si’ahl of the local Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. Today, Seattle has high populations of Native, Scandinavian, Asian American and African American people, as skillfully as a well-to-do 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 personal ad and shipbuilding center as a gateway to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush. Growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which usual Seattle as a center for aircraft manufacturing. The Seattle Place developed into a technology center from the 1980s onwards taking into consideration companies taking into consideration Microsoft becoming received in the region; Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a Seattleite by birth. Internet retailer Amazon was founded in Seattle in 1994, and major airline Alaska Airlines is based in SeaTac, Washington, serving Seattle’s international airport, Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. The stream of other software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, which increased the city’s population by with hint to 50,000 amongst 1990 and 2000. Owing largely to its unexpectedly increasing population in the 21st century, Seattle and the allow in of Washington 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.

Seattle has a noteworthy musical history. From 1918 to 1951, nearly two dozen jazz nightclubs existed along Jackson Street, from the current Chinatown/International District to the Central District. The jazz scene nurtured the to come careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is as a consequence the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix, as capably as the descent of the bands Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters and the alternative stone movement grunge.