Washington

Capital: Olympia · West · The Evergreen State

State Statistics

About Washington

Washington state occupies a unique position in American life: a Pacific gateway where primordial rainforests, volcanic peaks, and rushing salmon rivers share geography with the headquarters of Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing, and Starbucks. Divided by the Cascade Range into a rainy, mountainous, urbanized west side and a drier, agricultural, more conservative east side, the state encompasses some of the most dramatic ecological contrasts in North America — from the only true temperate rain forest in the lower 48 to the high desert of the Columbia Plateau. Seattle's meteoric rise as a tech capital has produced extraordinary wealth and the region's first megascale tech ecosystem outside the San Francisco Bay Area, while also driving a housing crisis and a growing homelessness crisis. Washington's progressive politics, outdoor culture, Native American heritage (with 29 federally recognized tribes), and world-class natural resources — from the finest salmon fisheries in the country to the wine country of the Yakima and Columbia valleys — make it one of America's most distinctive states. It is the only state named for a U.S. president, and it is determined, above all, never to be confused with Washington D.C.

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