Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located in the U.S. state of Washington between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, about 108 miles (180 km) south of the United States-Canadian border in King County, of which it is the county seat.

People and culture

Demographics

As of the U.S. Census of 2000, Seattle had a population of 563,374 and in all the Greater Puget Sound metropolitan area is home to almost 3.8 million people. The population today is approximately 73.40 % Caucasian, one of the highest percentages of Caucasians for a major American city. The city also has one of the nation's highest percentages of multiracial ancestry: 4.70% claim ancestry from two or more races. http://www.brookings.org/es/urban/livingcities/seattle.htm According to the 2000 U.S. census, 13.71% of Seattleites are Asian Americans, 8.44% are African Americans, 1.10% are Native Americans, 0.50% are Pacific Islanders, and 6.84% are from other non-Caucasian backgrounds.

Related Topics:
U.S. Census - 2000 - Caucasian - Asian American - African American - Native American - Pacific Islander

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The median income for a household in the city is $45,736, and the median income for a family is $62,195. Males have a median income of $40,929 versus $35,134 for females. The per capita income for the city is $30,306. 11.8% of the population and 6.9% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 13.8% are under the age of 18 and 10.2% are 65 or older.

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Seattle has seen a major increase in legal and illegal immigration in recent decades. The foreign-born population increased 40 percent between the 1990 and 2000 census. http://www.brookings.org/es/urban/livingcities/seattle.htm Although the 2000 census shows only 5.28% of the population as Hispanic or Latino of any race, Hispanics are believed to be the most rapidly growing population group in Washington State, with an estimated increase of 10% just in the years 2000–2002. http://www.theolympian.com/home/specialsections/Census/20030918/103142.shtml

Related Topics:
Hispanic - Latino

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It is estimated that 1.25% of the population is homeless, and that up to 14% of Seattle's homeless are children and young adults. Many people in Seattle are involved with social causes and in 2005 the Borgen Project moved to the city.

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In 2005, Men's Fitness magazine named Seattle the fittest city in the U.S.

Related Topics:
2005 - Men's Fitness - Fittest

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Landmarks

The Space Needle is Seattle's most recognizable landmark, featured in the logo of the television show Frasier and the backgrounds of the television series Grey's Anatomy, and dating from the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, a World's Fair. Contrary to popular belief, the Space Needle is neither the tallest structure in Seattle, nor is it even in downtown. This is a result of the Space Needle often being photographed from Queen Anne, which gives the optical illusion leading to the misconception. The surrounding fairgrounds have been converted into the Seattle Center, which remains the site for many important civic and cultural events.

Related Topics:
Space Needle - Frasier - Grey's Anatomy - 1962 - Century 21 Exposition - World's Fair - Seattle Center

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Other famous landmarks include the Smith Tower, Pike Place Market, the Fremont Troll, the Experience Music Project, the new Seattle Central Library, the Washington Mutual Tower and the Bank of America Tower, which is the fourth tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi River and the twelfth tallest in the nation. (On June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission reported that the original plan for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks included the Bank of America Tower as one of ten targeted buildings.) http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/betweenthelines/archives/2004_06_16.html

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Annual cultural events and fairs

Among Seattle's best-known annual cultural events and fairs are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout the summer months (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, and Bumbershoot over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by over 100,000 people annually, as are Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations.

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Several dozen Seattle neighborhoods have one or more annual street fairs, and many have an annual parade or foot race. The largest of the street fairs feature hundreds of craft and food booths and multiple stages with live entertainment, and draw more than 100,000 people over the course of a weekend; the smallest are strictly neighborhood affairs with a few dozen craft and food booths, barely distinguishable from more prominent neighborhoods' weekly farmers' markets.

Related Topics:
Seattle neighborhoods - Street fair - Parade - Foot race

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Other significant events include numerous Native American powwows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals associated with Festal at Seattle Center.

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Each year around late March, or April there is the premier Pacific Northwest Japanese Anime Convention, Sakura-Con, focusing on East Asian artforms. The event is sponsored by ANCEA, the Asia-Northwest Cultural Education Association.

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As in most large cities, there are numerous other annual events of more limited interest, ranging from book fairs and specialized film festivals to a two-day, 8,000-rider Seattle-to-Portland bicycle ride.

Related Topics:
Book fair - Film festival - Portland - Bicycle

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Performing arts

Seattle is a significant center of the performing arts. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded orchestras http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony/meet/recordings/ and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (which opened 2003 on the site of the former Seattle Opera House at Seattle Center), are comparably distinguished, with the Opera being particularly known for its performances of the works of Richard Wagner and the PNB School (founded in 1974) ranking as one of the top three ballet training institutions in the United States. http://www.danceusa.org/Press%20Archives/pnwballet0402.html, http://www.pnb.org/pnbschool/philosophy.html The Seattle Youth Symphony is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States, and among the most distinguished.

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In addition, Seattle has about twenty live theater venues, a slim majority of them being associated with fringe theater. It has a strong local scene for poetry slams and other performance poetry, and several venues that routinely present public lectures or readings. The largest of these is Seattle's 900-seat, Roman Revival Town Hall on First Hill.

Related Topics:
Fringe theater - Poetry slam - Performance poetry - Roman Revival - Town Hall - First Hill

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Seattle is often thought of as the home of grunge rock and musicians like Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who reached vast audiences in the early 1990s. Other popular bands Pearl Jam and Soundgarden also have roots in Seattle. The city is also home to such varied musicians as avant-garde jazz musicians Bill Frisell and Wayne Horvitz, rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot, smooth jazz saxophonist Kenny G, and such poppier rock bands as Goodness and the Presidents of the United States of America. Seattle was also the hometown of Jimi Hendrix, while Ann and Nancy Wilson of the band Heart, often attributed to Seattle, were actually from the neighboring suburb of Bellevue.

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Since the grunge era, the Seattle area has hosted a diverse and influential alternative music scene, centered near Capitol Hill. The Seattle-based record label Sub Pop was the first to sign Nirvana, and also signed such non-grunge bands as The Postal Service and The Shins. Other Seattle-area bands of note in this period, both signed and unsigned, include Alice in Chains, Alien Crime Syndicate, Antlers, The Beautiful Mothers, The Blood Brothers, Capitol Basement, Charlie Drown, Common Heroes, Dangermart, Daphne Loves Derby (Kent), Death Cab for Cutie (Bellingham), The Divorce, Dog Bone Sanctuary, Dolour, Drop Six, Drown Mary, Harvey Danger, Foo Fighters, Maktub, Metal Church, Minus the Bear, Modest Mouse (Issaquah), Mudhoney, The Murder City Devils, MxPx (Bremerton), The Myriad, Pearl Jam, Pedro the Lion, Peepshow, Point One, Queensryche (Bellevue), Ruby Doe, Screaming Trees (originally from Ellensburg), Second Coming, Sky Cries Mary, Sleater-Kinney (Olympia), Soundgarden, Sunny Day Real Estate, Super Deluxe, Supersuckers, Sweet 75, Turn to Fall, United States of Electronica, Utterance, Vendetta Red, Vexed, Vindaloo, Visqueen, Zeke and The Zero Points.

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Earlier Seattle-based popular music acts include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four; The Wailers, a 1960s garage band; the Allies and the Heaters (later "the Heats", because another band had the name first), 1980s teen-pop bands; from that same era, the more sophisticated pop of the short-lived Visible Targets and the still-performing Young Fresh Fellows and Posies (originally from Bellingham); and the pop-punk of The Fastbacks and the outright punk of the Fartz (later Ten Minute Warning), The Gits, and Seven Year Bitch.

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Spoken word and poetry are also staples of the Seattle arts scene, paralleling the explosion of the indie scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle's performance poetry scene blossomed with the importation of the poetry slam from Chicago (its origin) by transplant Paul Granert. This and the proliferation of weekly readings/open mics and poetry-friendly club venues like The Weathered Wall, the OK Hotel (now defunct), and the Ditto Tavern (now defunct), allowed spoken word/performance poetry to take off in a big way. The Seattle Poetry Festival (launched first as the "Poetry Circus" in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry such as Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Ted Jones, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ismael Reed, Seku Sundiata, and many others. Regionally famed poets like Bart Baxter, Tess Gallagher, and Rebecca Brown have also been featured at the Poetry Festival, as well as numerous other events such as the world famous "Bumbershoot" Arts Festival.

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Museums and art collections

The Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, making it the first museum in Washington. The main Seattle Art Museum opened in 1933. Art collections are also housed at the Frye Art Museum and the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

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Regional history collections are at the Museum of History and Industry and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Industry-specific collections are housed at the Center for Wooden Boats, Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, and Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include Nordic Heritage Museum and the Wing Luke Asian Museum.

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Recently, new galleries have sprung up, including artist-run venues such as Soil Art Gallery and Crawl Space Gallery.

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Other cultural institutions

The Woodland Park Zoo, opened as a private zoo in 1889, is one of the oldest on the West Coast, and has been a leader in innovations in naturalistic zoo exhibits. The Seattle Aquarium has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977. The Seattle Underground Tour, visiting many of the places that existed mostly before the great fire, is also popular.

Related Topics:
Woodland Park Zoo - 1889 - Seattle Aquarium - 1977 - Seattle Underground Tour

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Media

Seattle's leading newspapers are the daily Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; they share their advertising and business departments under a Joint Operating Agreement, which (as of 2004) the Times is seeking to terminate or renegotiate.

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The most prominent weeklies are the Seattle Weekly and the Stranger. Both of these consider themselves "alternative" papers; the Stranger has a reputation for a younger and hipper readership, the Weekly has a reputation as more serious and slightly more politically conservative, but both make frequent forays into each other's editorial and demographic turf. There are also several ethnic newspapers and numerous neighborhood newspapers.

Related Topics:
Seattle Weekly - Stranger - "alternative" papers

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Seattle is also well served by television and radio. Seattle's major network television affiliates are KOMO 4 (ABC), KING-TV 5 (NBC), KIRO 7 (CBS), KCTS 9 (PBS), KSTW 11 (UPN), KCPQ 13 (FOX), KONG 16/6 (Ind.), KTWB 22/10 (WB), and KWPX 33/3 (i). Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 CBC from Vancouver, British Columbia, often as cable channel 99.

Related Topics:
Television - Radio - KOMO - ABC - KING-TV - NBC - KIRO - CBS - KCTS - PBS - KSTW - UPN - KCPQ - FOX - KONG - Ind. - KTWB - WB - KWPX - I - CBUT - CBC - Vancouver, British Columbia

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Leading radio stations include KUBE 93.3, KNDD 107.7, KBKS 106.1 KIRO-AM 710, KOMO-AM 1000, NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9, KPLU-FM 88.5 (Tacoma), and KBCS 91.3 (Bellevue). Other notable stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with EMP) and KNHC-FM 89.5, owned by the public school system and operated by students of Nathan Hale High School. Many Seattle radio stations are also available through internet radio, with KUOW, KNHC, and KEXP being notable web radio innovators.

Related Topics:
KUBE - KNDD - KBKS - KIRO-AM - KOMO-AM - NPR - KUOW-FM - KPLU-FM - Tacoma - KEXP-FM - EMP - KNHC-FM - Internet radio

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Sports

The first major professional modern day sports franchise started in Seattle was the Seattle Supersonics (most known as "Seattle Sonics") National Basketball Association team (1967). They were joined by the Seattle Pilots baseball team in 1969. Both team names reflected the local importance of the aerospace industry. The Pilots lasted only one year, playing at Sick's Stadium, previously home to several minor league teams (most notably the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League) before relocating to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Their sole season was immortalized in Jim Bouton's book Ball Four.

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Legal wrangling over the move of the Pilots pressured Major League Baseball to award Seattle a new franchise, the Mariners, starting in 1977. The Mariners would play in the newly built Kingdome, an indoor sports facility they shared with the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League, who started play the previous year. For a time, all three of the city's major sports teams used the Kingdome, despite ongoing maintenance issues. After some controversy (voters defeated two funding initiatives) it was demolished in 2000 and replaced with a new stadium (later named Qwest Field), built for the Seahawks on the same site. By this time the other sports had long since relocated: the Sonics now use KeyArena exclusively; the Mariners' new home is the modern, retractable-roofed, Safeco Field, built with state money after the city voted down a bond issue to build it.

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The city's first professional sports championship was brought to the city by way of the PCHA Seattle Metropolitans in 1917. The professional hockey team, which represented Seattle from 1915 to 1924, was in fact the first U.S. team to win the coveted Stanley Cup, beating the Montréal Canadiens. They returned to the Stanley Cup finals twice more. The first, again versus Montreal, was in 1919. That series was cancelled due to an outbreak of influenza with the two teams tied at 2–2–1. The Metropolitans last went to the Stanley Cup finals in 1920, when they lost to the Ottawa Senators.

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The Seattle Supersonics won a modern-day championship, the NBA crown, in 1979, with Lenny Wilkens as coach.

Related Topics:
Seattle Supersonics - Lenny Wilkens

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In addition, the University of Washington, Seattle University, and Seattle Pacific University field teams in a variety of sports, including football and basketball. Their teams are known as the Huskies, Redhawks, and Falcons, respectively. The Husky football team has a wide following that ranks with those of the major professional teams in the city. In 1991 the Huskies shared an NCAA Division I collegiate football championship with the Hurricanes of the University of Miami.

Related Topics:
Football - Basketball - NCAA - Collegiate football - University of Miami

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In 1998, the Seattle City Council failed to pass a resolution supporting a Seattle bid for the 2012 Olympics.

Related Topics:
1998 - 2012 Olympics

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In 2004, the Seattle Storm won a WNBA championship.

Related Topics:
2004 - Seattle Storm - WNBA

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◄ Seattle, Washington: History

Seattle, Washington: Education ►

~ Table of Content ~

►	Introduction
►	History
►	People and culture
►	Education
►	Government and politics
►	Infrastructure
►	Economy
►	Geography and climate
►	See also
►	Sources
►	External links

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