Spokane ( spoh-KAN) is a city in and the county chair of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington along the Spokane River next to the Selkirk Mountains and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, 92 miles (148 km) south of the Canada–U.S. border, 18 miles (30 km) west of the Washington–Idaho border, and 279 miles (449 km) east of Seattle along Interstate 90.

Spokane is the economic and cultural center of the Spokane metropolitan area, the Spokane–Coeur d’Alene combination statistical area, and the Inland Northwest. It is known as the birthplace of Father’s Day, and its official nickname is the “Lilac City”. A pink double flower cultivar of the common lilac, known as Syringa vulgaris ‘Spokane’, is named for the city. The city and the wider Inland Northwest area are served by Spokane International Airport, 5 miles (8 km) west of downtown Spokane. According to the 2010 Census, Spokane had a population of 208,916, making it the second-largest city in Washington, and the 100th-largest city in the United States. In 2019, the United States Census Bureau estimated the city’s population at 222,081 and the population of the Spokane Metropolitan Area at 573,493.

The first people to stimulate in the area, the Spokane tribe (their proclaim meaning “children of the sun” in Salishan), lived off profuse game. David Thompson explored the area with the westward press on and launch of the North West Company’s Spokane House in 1810. This trading declare was the first long-term European pact in Washington. Completion of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1881 brought settlers to the Spokane area. The similar year it was officially incorporated as a city under the proclaim of Spokane Falls (it was reincorporated below its current name ten years later). In the late 19th century, gold and silver were discovered in the Inland Northwest. The local economy depended on mining, timber, and agriculture until the 1980s. Spokane hosted the first environmentally themed World’s Fair at Expo ’74.

Many of the downtown area’s older Romanesque Revival-style buildings were intended by architect Kirtland Kelsey Cutter after the Great Fire of 1889. The city is also house to the Riverfront and Manito parks, the Smithsonian-affiliated Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, the Davenport Hotel, and the Fox and Bing Crosby theaters.

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes is the chair of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, and the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist serves as that of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane. The Spokane Washington Temple in the east of the county serves The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gonzaga University was traditional in 1887 by the Jesuits, and the private Presbyterian Whitworth University was founded three years far along and moved to north Spokane in 1914.