Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. European settlers claimed the area in 1846, with the Treaty of Medicine Creek initiated in 1854, and the Treaty of Olympia initiated in January 1856.

Olympia was incorporated as a town on January 28, 1859, and as a city in 1882. The population was 46,479 as of the 2010 census, making it the 24th largest city in the state. The city borders Lacey to the east and Tumwater to the south. Olympia is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region. Olympia is located 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Seattle, the largest city in the allow in of Washington.

The site of Olympia had been home to Lushootseed-speaking peoples known as the Steh-Chass (or Stehchass, later ration of the post-treaty Squaxin Island Tribe) for thousands of years. Other Native Americans regularly visited the head of Budd Inlet and the Steh-Chass including the further ancestor tribes of the Squaxin, as capably as the Nisqually, Puyallup, Chehalis, Suquamish, and Duwamish. The first recorded Europeans came to Olympia in 1792. Peter Puget and a crew from the British Vancouver Expedition are said to have explored the site, but neither recorded any encounters similar to the resident Indigenous population here. In 1846, Edmund Sylvester and Levi Lathrop Smith jointly claimed the home that is now downtown Olympia. In 1851, the U.S. Congress time-honored the Customs District of Puget Sound for Washington Territory and Olympia became the home of the customs house. Its population steadily expanded from Oregon Trail immigrants. In 1850, the town settled upon the proclaim Olympia, at the opinion of local resident Colonel Isaac N. Ebey, because of its view of the Olympic Mountains to the Northwest. The Place began to be served by a small fleet of steamboats known as the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet.

Over the course of two days, December 24–26, 1854, Governor Isaac I. Stevens negotiated the Treaty of Medicine Creek once the representatives of the Nisqually, Puyallup, Squawksin, Steh’Chass, Noo-Seh-Chatl, Squi-Aitl, T’Peeksin, Sah-Heh-Wa-Mish, and S’Hotl-Ma-Mish tribes. Stevens’ treaty included the preservation of Indigenous fishing, hunting, gathering and further rights. It also included a section which, at least as interpreted by United States officials, required the Native American signatories to change to one of three reservations. Doing so would effectively force the Nisqually people to cede their prime gardening and vivacious space. One of the leaders of the Nisqually, Chief Leschi, outraged, refused to relinquish ownership of this estate and on the other hand fought for his peoples’ right to their territory, sparking the beginning of the Puget Sound War. The prosecution ended in the controversial realization of Leschi.

In 1896, Olympia became the home of the Olympia Brewing Company, which brewed Olympia Beer until 2003.