Seattle

Seattle is the largest city in Washington. It was named after Chief Sealth, a Suqamish/Duwamish Native American leader. Seattle, Washington (47.606N. -122.33W) is the largest city in Washington, and in the Pacific Northwest. It was officially incorporated in 1889, but had been a town since 1851, when a group of pioneers from Illinois settled West Seattle, a peninsula within the current city limits to the west. Seattle's median household income is $45,736, where the national average is $41,994. The population as of 2006 is 578,700. The city has generally been at capacity since about 1960, since the population hasn't gone up more than 10,000 people since then.

In 1999 Seattle hosted the WTO at the Washington Convention Center on Pine Street, and found itself the locus of a large protest by anti-globalist activists. Very rapidly, however, anarchists took advantage of the fact that the police were overwhelmed and began destroying property and looting storefronts. The violence of the "Battle of Seattle" raged for several days.

On Ash Wednesday 2001 Seattle sustained damage in the large Nisqually Quake, which cracked the Highway 99 Viaduct and destroyed some vintage brick buildings in Pioneer Square.