Gig Harbor is the name of both a bay upon Puget Sound and a city upon its shore in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 7,126 at the 2010 census.

Gig Harbor is one of several cities and towns that claim to be “the gateway to the Olympic Peninsula”. Due to its close access to several give leave to enter and city parks, and historic port that includes boutiques and fine dining, it has become a popular tourist destination. Gig Harbor is located along State Route 16, about 6 mi (10 km) from its stock at Interstate 5, over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. A $1.2 billion project to mount up a second span to the bridge was completed in 2007. From Gig Harbor, Tacoma can be reached in under 20 minutes and Seattle in below an hour.

During a oppressive storm in 1840, Captain Charles Wilkes brought the captain’s gig (small boat) into the harbor for protection. Later, with the pronouncement of Wilkes 1841 map of the Oregon Territory, he named the sheltered bay Gig Harbor.

In 1867, fisherman Samuel Jerisich came to the Gig Harbor area, along subsequently many supplementary immigrants from Sweden, Norway, and Croatia. The town was platted in 1888 by Alfred M. Burnham.

Gig Harbor was officially incorporated upon July 12, 1946. Commercial fishing, boat building, and logging dominated the economy until the construction of the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. Until then, the primary method of transportation together with Gig Harbor and the economic center of straightforward Tacoma was by steamship. Starting in 1836, steamships started plying the waters of Puget Sound and speedily developed into what was eventually dubbed the “Mosquito Fleet”. Gig Harbor, isolated from Tacoma and Seattle by Puget Sound and the Tacoma Narrows, could not be reached by automobile or horseback except by a no question long and arduous trip south re Puget Sound and Hammersly Inlet. The boom was to be gruff lived, as the first bridge collapsed just months after it was completed. The resource demands of World War II prevented marginal bridge from visceral built until 1950. Between the time when the first bridge collapsed and with the second bridge was completed, a state-run ferry support delivered drivers directly into downtown Gig Harbor. Remains of the ferry port can still be seen just uncovered the mouth of the harbor at the southeast fade away of Harborview Drive. The Place has been turned into a small park, where the public can look a panoramic view of the Cascade Mountains, Point Defiance, and Mount Rainier.