Seattle
Pike Place Market, Elliott Bay & Seattle's Waterfront Soul
Seattle (the largest city in the Pacific Northwest, the seat of King County, Washington — population approximately 750,000 in the city, 4.0 million in the Greater Seattle metro area — the home of Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, Costco, Nordstrom, and virtually every other major Pacific Northwest corporation): Pike Place Market and the Elliott Bay waterfront form the emotional and experiential heart of Seattle — the place where the city's character (the informal, outdoorsy, coffee-obsessed, Pacific-Northwest-proud personality of Seattle) is most visible.
Chinatown-International District & Seattle's Asian-American Heritage
Seattle's Chinatown-International District (CID — the historically Asian-American neighbourhood south of downtown Seattle) is one of the oldest and most diverse Asian-American communities in the United States, home to Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, and Southeast Asian communities whose history in Seattle extends back to the Chinese labourers who built the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s-1880s.
Pioneer Square, the Underground & Seattle's Gold Rush History
Pioneer Square (the historic Romanesque Revival neighbourhood at the south end of downtown Seattle — the original commercial centre of the city after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889) is the most historically significant neighbourhood in Seattle, containing the largest concentration of Victorian commercial architecture in the Pacific Northwest and the famous 'Seattle Underground' — the subterranean streets of the original pre-fire city.
Seattle Food Scene — Pacific Seafood, Craft Beer & Farm-to-Table
Seattle's food culture (the most farm-to-table-focused major food city on the American West Coast, rooted in the extraordinary diversity of Pacific Northwest ingredients — the wild Alaskan salmon (chinook/king, sockeye/red, coho/silver, pink, and chum), the Dungeness crab, the Pacific oysters (the Olympia oyster (Ostrea lurida — the only oyster species native to the Pacific Coast of North America) and the farmed Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas, introduced from Japan in the 1920s)), the Rainier cherries, the Walla Walla sweet onions, and the extraordinary variety of wild mushrooms): Seattle is the only major American city where the farmers' market (Pike Place Market) is also the primary tourist attraction.
Grunge, Jimi Hendrix & Seattle's Music Legacy
Seattle has produced a disproportionate share of the most influential musicians in the history of American popular music — Jimi Hendrix (the greatest rock guitarist in history, born in Seattle's Central District in 1942), Kurt Cobain (the Nirvana frontman who defined the sound of the 1990s, born in Aberdeen, WA), Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, Layne Staley — and the city's music culture is inseparable from its identity.
Boeing, the Museum of Flight & Seattle's Aviation Heritage
Boeing (The Boeing Company — the largest aerospace and defense company in the world by revenue in most years, founded on July 15, 1916 by William Edward Boeing (1881-1956) in a red barn on the southern shore of Lake Union in Seattle — the company that has dominated commercial aircraft manufacturing for 80 years and that is more responsible than any other single company for the shape of modern air travel): Seattle's relationship with Boeing (the company that employed more than 100,000 people in the Seattle area at its peak, that was the largest private employer in Washington State for most of the 20th century, and that continues to build the 737, 747, 767, and 777 aircraft at its manufacturing facilities in Renton and Everett) is more defining than any other company-city relationship in American industrial history.
University District, Fremont & Seattle's Creative Neighborhoods
The University District ('The Ave' — University Way NE, the main commercial street of the University District, running north-south through the neighbourhood east of the University of Washington campus) and the surrounding neighbourhoods (Fremont, Wallingford, Ballard, and Green Lake) form the most distinctively Pacific Northwest residential culture in Seattle — the neighbourhoods where the city's outdoor-oriented, coffee-saturated, independent-minded character is most concentrated.
Lake Washington, Arboretum & Seattle's Outdoor Life
Seattle's outdoor culture (the most outdoors-oriented major American city after Denver, the city where more residents per capita participate in hiking, mountaineering, kayaking, cycling, and skiing than any other large city in the United States): the combination of immediate access to Puget Sound (kayaking, sailing, rowing), Lake Washington (the 87 km² (33.6 sq mile) freshwater lake on Seattle's eastern border), the Burke-Gilman Trail (the 27 km (17 mile) bicycle and pedestrian trail from Ballard through the University District to Kenmore), and the proximity of the Cascades and Olympic mountains defines Seattle's outdoor character.
Mount Rainier, Olympic & the Pacific Northwest's Natural Wonders
Seattle is surrounded by some of the most spectacular natural landscapes in North America — within 90 minutes' drive of the city lie Mount Rainier National Park (the most-visited national park in Washington State), Olympic National Park (the UNESCO World Heritage site with temperate rainforest, glacier-capped peaks, and wild Pacific coastline), and the volcanic peaks of the North Cascades.