Seattle ( see-AT-əl) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the chair of King County, Washington. Seattle is the largest city in both the state 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 accumulation rate of 2.1%. In July 2016, Seattle was anew the fastest-growing major U.S. city, with a 3.1% annual enlargement rate.

Seattle is situated upon an isthmus amongst Puget Sound (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost large city in the United States, located virtually 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canadian border. A major gateway for trade later than Asia, Seattle is the fourth-largest harbor in North America in terms of container handling as of 2015.

The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans for at least 4,000 years in the past the first enduring European settlers. Arthur A. Denny and his charity 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. The deal was moved to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay and named “Seattle” in 1852, in rave review 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 with ease as a booming 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 public notice and shipbuilding middle as a gateway to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush. Growth after World War II was partially due to the local Boeing company, which established Seattle as a center for plane manufacturing. The Seattle Place developed into a technology middle from the 1980s onwards behind companies taking into consideration Microsoft becoming normal 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 extra software, biotechnology, and Internet companies led to an economic revival, which increased the city’s population by roughly 50,000 amongst 1990 and 2000. Owing largely to its suddenly increasing population in the 21st century, Seattle and the make a clean breast 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 in the future careers of Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, and others. Seattle is after that the birthplace of rock musician Jimi Hendrix, as capably as the origin of the bands Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters and the alternative rock movement grunge.