Seattle metropolitan area


The Seattle metropolitan area is an urban conglomeration in the U.S. state of Washington that comprises Seattle, its surrounding satellites and suburbs. The United States Census Bureau defines the Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue, WA metropolitan statistical area as the three most populous counties in the state: King, Pierce, and Snohomish. Seattle has the 15th largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States with a population of 4,018,762 as of the 2020 census, over half of Washington's total population.
The area is considered part of the greater Puget Sound region, which largely overlaps with the Seattle Combined Statistical Area. The Seattle metropolitan area is home to a large tech industry and is the headquarters of several major companies, including Microsoft and Amazon. The area's geography is varied and includes the lowlands around Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains; the highest peak in the metropolitan area is Mount Rainier, which has a summit elevation of and is one of the tallest mountains in the United States.

Definitions

As defined by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget, the Seattle metropolitan area is officially the Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue, WA metropolitan statistical area and consists of:
  • Everett metropolitan division
  • * Snohomish County: north of Seattle
  • Seattle–Bellevue–Kent metropolitan division
  • * King County: Seattle and its immediate vicinity
  • Tacoma–Lakewood metropolitan division
  • * Pierce County: south of Seattle
Based on commuting patterns, the adjacent metropolitan areas of Olympia, Bremerton, and Mount Vernon, along with a few smaller satellite urban areas, are grouped together in a wider labor market region known as the Seattle–Tacoma combined statistical area, which encompasses most of the Puget Sound region. The population of this wider region was 4,953,389 at the 2020 census and estimated to be 5,105,721 in 2024; the Puget Sound region is home to two-thirds of Washington's population. The Seattle CSA is the 14th largest in the United States and the 13th largest primary census statistical area in the country. The additional metropolitan and micropolitan areas included are:
  • Bremerton–Silverdale–Port Orchard metropolitan area
  • * Kitsap County: west of Seattle, separated from the city by Puget Sound
  • Centralia micropolitan area
  • * Lewis County: south of Olympia
  • Mount Vernon–Anacortes metropolitan area
  • * Skagit County: north of Everett
  • Oak Harbor micropolitan area
  • * Island County: northwest of Everett, encompassing Whidbey Island and Camano Island in Puget Sound
  • Olympia–Lacey–Tumwater metropolitan area
  • * Thurston County: southwest of Seattle, at the south end of Puget Sound
  • Shelton micropolitan area
  • * Mason County: west of Tacoma and northwest of Olympia

    Establishment and expansion

The Census Bureau adopted metropolitan districts in the 1910 census to create a standard definition for urban areas with industrial activity around a central city. At the time, Seattle had the 22nd largest metropolitan district population at 239,269 people, a 195.8 percent increase from the population of the equivalent area in the 1900 census. The Seattle metropolitan district was expanded to encompass the entirety of Lake Washington in the 1930 census and also included Edmonds in Snohomish County, Des Moines in southern King County, and portions of eastern Bainbridge Island in Kitsap County. The district covered, of which two-thirds was outside of Seattle proper, and counted a population of 420,663.
The Seattle metropolitan area, successor to the metropolitan district, was expanded in 1949 to encompass all of King County but lose its portions in Kitsap and Snohomish counties. The local chamber of commerce and other leaders had lobbied for a definition that also included all of Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish counties in a manner similar to the Portland metropolitan area, which had been expanded to cover four counties in Oregon and southwestern Washington. The Bureau of the Budget added Snohomish County to its definition of the Seattle metropolitan area in 1959. The definition had previously only encompassed King County; local leaders had sought to also include Pierce and Kitsap counties in a "Puget Sound metropolitan area". Snohomish County had protested its inclusion and had sought a separate metropolitan area designation centered on Everett, which did not meet the population threshold of 50,000 residents.
In the 1950 census, a separate metropolitan area for Tacoma was defined that encompassed all of Pierce County. Kitsap County remained part of no metropolitan area despite its connections to both Seattle and Tacoma. The Office of Management and Budget included the area in the Seattle–Tacoma standard consolidated statistical area in 1981; it was replaced in 1983 by the Seattle–Tacoma consolidated metropolitan statistical area. The CMSA was expanded to include Bremerton and Olympia after the 1990 census and was the 12th largest in the country at the time. The Office of Management and Budget restructured its classification system in 2003 and created the Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue metropolitan statistical area to cover the tri-county region. A new Seattle–Tacoma–Olympia combined statistical area replaced the CMSA and expanded to cover Island and Mason counties. The Mount Vernon–Anacortes metropolitan area was created in 2003 to encompass Skagit County and added to the Seattle CSA in 2006; the CSA was extended further south to Lewis County through the addition of the Centralia micropolitan area in 2013.

Geography

The Seattle metropolitan area covers of land and water in Western Washington divided between the three counties; King County is the largest county at over, followed by Snohomish and Pierce counties. The region includes portions of the Cascade Range and two active volcanoes, Mount Rainier and Glacier Peak, which can generate lahars that could potentially reach populated areas. The summit of Mount Rainier is the tallest point in Washington at above mean sea level; it has 26 glaciers that are visible from much of the region's lowlands. To the west of the metropolitan area is Puget Sound, which forms the second-largest saltwater estuary in the United States and is part of the Salish Sea.

Cities

;Principal cities
;Other cities

Indian reservations

The Seattle metropolitan area is home to nine federally recognized tribes that belong to the indigenous Coast Salish peoples:
The tribes have sovereign governments that have authority over their enrolled members and the Indian reservations that were established in the region. The reservations were created through treaties with the federal government that were not consistently honored and often combined several tribes together; they were also open to settlement by non-Indians.

Military installations

, the Puget Sound region had nearly 105,000 U.S. Department of Defense and Washington National Guard personnel, including active duty, guard and reserve members of the military, and civilian workers at United States Armed Forces bases. Major facilities in the area include Joint Base Lewis–McChord in Pierce County, the largest military base on the West Coast with over 25,000 active duty soldiers; Naval Station Everett in Snohomish County; and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Island County. The Kitsap Peninsula—part of the Seattle CSA—is home to Naval Base Kitsap, which includes the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton and Naval Submarine Base Bangor, site of the third-largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world with more than 1,100 warheads for submarines. The U.S. Coast Guard is under military command in time of war, and it routinely supports Defense Department missions, including escorting ballistic missile submarines to and from Bangor. U.S. Coast Guard Northwest District headquarters are on the Seattle waterfront, and it is home to all U.S. icebreakers., the base was being expanded to include three new Polar Security Cutters.
The region also has several major companies that serve as defense contractors for the U.S. military, comprising most of Washington's $6.9 billion awarded in fiscal year 2022. The largest contractors in the Seattle area include Boeing, PacMed, and Microsoft. The Veterans Health Administration has 110,000 enrolled patients in the Puget Sound region, which includes a large population of retirees.

Demographics

As of the 2020 census, there were 4,018,762 people in the three counties that form the Seattle metropolitan area, which comprises 52 percent of Washington's population. It is the 15th largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States and among the fastest-growing in the country. The overall population density was. The population was 49.9% male and 50.1% female with a median age of 37.2 years old.
The racial makeup of the metropolitan area was 60.1% White, 15.4% Asian, 6.1% Black, 1.1% Native American or Alaska Native, 1.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 11.0% from two or more races, and 5.3% from other races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race formed 11.2% of the population. From 2010 to 2020, the non-Hispanic White population of the Seattle metropolitan area declined from 68 percent to 58 percent—the largest decline in the U.S. The region also has a large Asian American population that was among the fastest-growing in the country between 2010 and 2020.
There were 1,564,432 total households in the metropolitan area at the time of the 2020 census, of which 47.8% included a married couple, 8.1% included an unmarried cohabiting couple, 19.7% had a single male with no spouse or partner, and 24.4% single female with no spouse or partner. Out of all households, 29.8% had people under the age of 18 and 25.3% had people 65 years or older. Approximately 18.3% of household residents were opposite-sex spouses, while 0.3% were same-sex spouses.
According to a 2022 survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 17 percent of adult residents in the Seattle metropolitan area identified as LGBTQ. The region has one of the highest percentages of same-sex couples in the United States at 1.3 percent of households in the metropolitan area as of 2022; in 2023, Seattle itself had 3.2 percent of households with same-sex couples—the highest percentage in the United States.