Spokane County, Washington


Spokane County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 539,339, and was estimated to be 555,947 in 2024, making it the fourth-most populous county in Washington. The county seat and largest city is Spokane, the second largest city in the state after Seattle. The county is named after the Spokane people.
Spokane County is part of the Spokane metropolitan area, which is also part of the greater Spokane–Coeur d'Alene combined statistical area that includes nearby Kootenai County, Idaho.

History

The first humans to arrive in what is now Spokane County arrived between 12,000 and 8,000 years ago and were hunter-gatherer societies who lived off the plentiful game in the area. Initially, the settlers hunted predominantly bison and antelope, but after the game migrated out of the region, the native people became dependent on gathering various roots, berries, and nuts, and harvesting fish. The Spokane tribe, after which the county is named, means "Children of the Sun" or "sun people" in Salishan Explorer-geographer David Thompson, working as head of the North West Company's Columbia Department, became the first European to explore what is now the Inland Northwest. After establishing the Kullyspell House and Saleesh House fur trading posts in what are now Idaho and Montana, Thompson then attempted to expand further west. He sent out two trappers, Jacques Raphael Finlay and Finan McDonald, to construct a fur-trading post on the Spokane River in Washington and trade with the local Indians. This post was established in 1810, at the confluence of the Little Spokane and Spokane Rivers, becoming the first enduring European settlement of significance in Washington. Known as the Spokane House, or simply "Spokane", it was in operation from 1810 to 1826.
Spokane County was established by the Washington Territorial Legislature effective January 29, 1858, from a portion of Walla Walla County, which originally encompassed most of eastern Washington Territory between the Cascades and Rockies. The new county was bound to the west by the Columbia and Snake rivers and to the east by the Rockies; it included portions of modern-day Idaho and Montana. The territorial legislature designated the farm of Angus McLeod as the temporary county seat and appointed officials to several positions for Spokane County, but they never took office and did not organize a government. In late 1859, a group of settlers in the Bitterroot Valley petitioned to create their own county, which was not granted at that time; the territorial legislature reorganized Spokane County on January 17, 1860, with a seat on a land claim near Fort Colville.
The first county government met on May 8, 1860, and began conducting business. The eastern and southern portions of Spokane County were partitioned several times as new counties were created, beginning with Missoula County in December 1860 and followed by Shoshone County and Nez Perce County in 1861. These areas became part of the new Idaho Territory, which was organized by the U.S. Congress on March 3, 1863, and reduced the size of Spokane County even further. On January 19, 1864, the county was annexed into neighboring Stevens County, which had been created a year earlier from the northern portions of Walla Walla County. The seat of Stevens County was Pinkney City until it was temporarily relocated to the town of Spokane Falls in 1875.
Spokane County was re-established on October 30, 1879, from the portions of Stevens County south of the Columbia, Spokane, and Wenatchee rivers. The western portion of the county was used to create Lincoln County, which was established on November 23, 1883. The first post office in the county was located at Spokane Bridge.
The selection of a permanent county seat was to be decided in an election in November 1880 between the growing cities of Cheney and Spokane Falls, both candidates for a major Northern Pacific Railway hub. The unofficial returns showed a 14-vote margin in favor of Cheney, but the result was disputed by county officials from Spokane Falls based on "irregularities" in the ballots. The official result had a margin of two or three votes for Spokane Falls, but Cheney residents demanded a recount, which was granted by a court order that was ignored by county officials in Spokane Falls. On March 21, 1881, a group of armed Cheney residents forcibly took custody of the county auditor, recount ballots, and other county records during a nighttime raid. After declaring their own recount had been in favor of Cheney as county seat, the records and the county auditor were moved from Spokane Falls; other government officials also moved to Cheney after a court order upheld the Cheney recount. A new ballot question in 1886 resulted in Spokane becoming the permanent county seat.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has a total area of, of which is land and is water. It is the 19th largest county in Washington by total area.
The lowest point in the county is the Spokane River behind Long Lake Dam at above sea level. The highest point in the county is the summit of Mount Spokane at per.
Spokane County has a complex geologic history and varied topography. To the west is the barren landscape of the Columbia Basin and to the east are the foothills of the Rockies—the Coeur d'Alene Mountains, which rise to the east in northern Idaho. Spokane County lies in a transition area between the eastern edge of the basaltic Channeled Scablands steppe plains to the west and the rugged, timbered Rocky Mountain foothills to the east. The area exhibits signs of the prehistoric geologic events that shaped the area and region such as the Missoula Floods, which ended 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. The geography to the southeast, such as the Saltese Flats and Saltese Uplands is characterized as a shrub–steppe landscape with grassy hills and ravines.
In ecology, as with the topography, the county is also in a transition area, roughly split between the Columbia Plateau ecoregion in the southwest portion, where it is at the eastern edge of the basaltic Channeled Scablands steppe plain and the Northern Rockies ecoregion in the northwest portion, which is the rugged and forested Selkirk Mountains.

Rivers and streams

Recent estimates

As of the second quarter of 2025, the median home value in Spokane County was $452,318.
As of the 2024 American Community Survey, there are 224,960 estimated households in Spokane County with an average of 2.5 persons per household. The county has a median household income of $86,205. Approximately 12.5% of the county's population lives at or below the poverty line. Spokane County has an estimated 59.0% employment rate, with 34.9% of the population holding a bachelor's degree or higher and 95.2% holding a high school diploma. There were 238,318 housing units at an average density of.
The top five reported language were English, Spanish, Indo-European, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Other.
The median age in the county was 38.7 years.
Race / ethnicity Pop. 1980Pop. 1990Pop. 2000Pop. 2010
White alone 323,170
337,561
375,427
408,629
431,806
Black or African American alone 4,238
4,972
6,437
7,714
10,486
Native American or Alaska Native alone 4,193
5,216
5,478
6,478
6,862
Asian alone 3,911
6,352
7,758
9,799
12,404
Pacific Islander alone ——630
1,817
4,202
Other race alone 1,512
269
598
610
2,644
Mixed race or multiracial ——10,050
14,914
35,585
Hispanic or Latino 4,811
6,994
11,561
21,260
35,350
Total341,835
361,364
417,939
471,221
539,339

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, there were 539,339 people, 212,470 households, and 132,324 families residing in the county. Of the residents, 21.8% were under the age of 18 and 17.3% were 65 years of age or older; the median age was 38.0 years. For every 100 females there were 98.3 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 96.4 males. 85.4% of residents lived in urban areas and 14.6% lived in rural areas. The population density was and there were 224,019 housing units at an average density of ; 5.2% of those units were vacant.
The racial makeup of the county was 82.1% White, 2.0% Black or African American, 1.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 2.3% Asian, 0.8% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 2.2% from some other race, and 9.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 6.6% of the population.
There were 212,470 households in the county, of which 28.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 26.5% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. About 29.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. Among occupied housing units, 62.6% were owner-occupied and 37.4% were renter-occupied with a homeowner vacancy rate of 1.1% and a rental vacancy rate of 5.1%.
Females consisted of 50.1% of the county's population. 5.3% of the county's population were foreign-born persons.
Of those 25 years or older, 94.2% of people in the county held a high school diploma, GED, or higher; 31.5% obtained a bachelor's degree or higher. Of those below the age of 65 years, 10.0% had a disability and 6.3% were without health insurance. The median household income was $64,079 and 11.2% of the county were living in poverty.