US Map / Cities / Seattle

Seattle Map

Seattle is squeezed onto a strip of hills between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 781,000 people in 2024 on a site with saltwater on one side and fresh on the other.

Where is Seattle?

Seattle is in northwestern Washington, roughly 100 miles south of the Canadian border, on the eastern shore of Puget Sound. The city runs long and narrow north to south because water constrains it in both directions. It is about 175 miles north of Portland, some 280 miles west of Spokane across the Cascades, and roughly 140 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Seattle at a glance

Another 12,886 residents would lift Seattle past Louisville into No. 18; 51,490 fewer would put it behind Nashville at No. 20. No second Washington city reaches the hundred. That is about 10% of Washington's 7.96 million residents inside a single municipal line. It holds about 33% of King County's 2,340,211 residents.

Seattle in Washington

Seattle is the seat of King County, the most populous county in the Pacific Northwest, and it dominates a state whose eastern two-thirds are dry and thinly settled — the Washington county map makes the contrast plain. The capital, Olympia, is at the southern end of Puget Sound about 60 miles away, and Tacoma and Everett extend the urban belt along the shore. The Washington state page covers the whole state.

Puget Sound and the mountains on both sides

Puget Sound is a glacially carved inland sea, deep right up to the shore, which is why Seattle has a working port well inland from the ocean. The ice also shaped the ground under the city: the long north-south ridges and troughs, including Lake Washington itself, were gouged by a lobe of the Cordilleran ice sheet. The Cascade Range rises to the east, with Mount Rainier at 14,411 feet visible from the city on clear days, and the Olympic Mountains stand across the Sound to the west. The Cascadia subduction zone lies offshore.

Cities near Seattle

Down the coast lie Portland and Boise inland; further south are Sacramento and San Francisco. The Pacific division page gathers the coastal states.