Eastern Washington


Eastern Washington is the region of the U.S. state of Washington located east of the Cascade Range. It contains the city of Spokane, the Tri-Cities, the Columbia River and the Grand Coulee Dam, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the fertile farmlands of the Yakima Valley and the Palouse. Unlike in Western Washington, the climate is dry, including some desert environments.

Geography

Nomenclature

Other terms used for Eastern Washington or large parts of it include:

Cities

[Image:SpokaneFromPalisades 20070614.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Spokane is the largest city in eastern Washington and the metropolitan center of the Inland Empire region]
Notable cities and towns in Eastern Washington include:

Protected areas

Counties

Eastern Washington is composed of:
Some definitions also include part of Skamania County that lies east of the ridge line of the Cascade Mountains.

Climate

A significant difference between Eastern Washington and the western half of the state is its climate. While the west half of the state is located in a rainy oceanic climate, the eastern half receives little rainfall due to the rainshadow created by the Cascade Mountains. Also, due to being farther from the sea, the east side has both hotter summers and colder winters than the west. Most communities in Eastern Washington, for example, have significant yearly snowfall, while in the west snowfall is minimal and not seen every year. The east and west do still have some climatic traits in common, though: more rainfall in winter than summer, a lack of severe storms, and milder temperature ranges than more inland locations.
There is some variation in both temperature and rainfall throughout Eastern Washington. Generally, lower elevations are both hotter and drier than higher elevations. This is easily seen in the comparison between low-elevation Richland with higher elevation Spokane.

Population

Compared to Western Washington, Eastern Washington has roughly twice the land area and one-fourth the population. As of the 2020 census, Eastern Washington was home to 1,667,593 of the state's total 7,705,281 residents, making its population comparable to that of West Virginia. The population growth rate between the two is roughly the same. Of Washington's ten Congressional districts, Eastern Washington exactly encompasses two, aside from a small portion of the 8th in Chelan, Douglas, and Kittitas Counties.

Education

Eastern Washington hosts a number of universities including three of the state's five public universities.

Public institutions

Private institutions

Research institutions

Proposed statehood

There have been sporadic movements to create a 51st state out of Eastern Washington by splitting the current state down the Cascades, but proposals have rarely progressed out of the state legislature's committees. Bills in the Washington State Legislature which would have requested the United States Congress to take up the question were proposed in 1996, 1999, 2005, and 2017. Proposed names for the new state have included Lincoln, Columbia, Liberty, or simply Eastern Washington. Many of these proposals would include the Idaho Panhandle as part of the proposed state of Lincoln.
Eastern Washington tends to vote Republican, whereas Western Washington usually votes Democratic. Even Spokane, the proposed capital and largest city, is in a fairly reliably Republican county despite tending to have a higher democratic vote than other Eastern Washington cities. The only fairly consistently Democratic county is the college town dominated Whitman County, which even then is far less Democratic than Western Washington.