King County, Washington
|King County, Washington|
King County Courthouse
Location in the state of Washington
Washington's location in the U.S.
|Founded||December 22, 1852|
|Named for||William Rufus King (1852 - 2005)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (2005 - present)
|• Total||2,307 sq mi (5,975 km2)|
|• Land||2,115 sq mi (5,478 km2)|
|• Water||191 sq mi (495 km2), 8.3%|
|• Density||908/sq mi (350.7/km²)|
|Congressional districts||1st, 7th, 8th, 9th|
|Time zone||Pacific: UTC-8/-7|
King County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2010 census its population was 1,931,249. King is the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, which is the state's largest city.
King County is included in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metropolitan Statistical Area. About two-thirds of the county's population lives in the city's suburbs. As of 2011 King County was the 86th highest-income county in the United States.
- 1 Etymology
- 2 History
- 3 Government
- 4 Council members
- 5 Politics
- 6 Geography
- 7 Demographics
- 8 Education
- 9 Communities
- 10 See also
- 11 References
- 12 External links
The county was originally named after William Rufus King who was Vice-President when the Washington Territory was created. In 1986, a motion was introduced to change the namesake to Martin Luther King, Jr. No public votes or hearings were taken on the change.
On February 24, 1986, the King County Council passed Council Motion 6461 five votes to four setting forth the historical basis for the renaming of King County in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Because only the state can charter counties, this change was not made official until April 19, 2005, when the Governor signed Senate Bill 5332 into law.
Martin Luther King Jr. visited King County for two days in November 1961.
The county was formed out of territory within Thurston County on December 22, 1852, by the Oregon Territory legislature, and was named after Alabama resident William R. King, who had just been elected Vice President of the United States under President Franklin Pierce. Seattle was made the county seat on January 11, 1853.
King County originally extended to the Olympic Peninsula. According to historian Bill Speidel, when peninsular prohibitionists threatened to shut down Seattle's saloons, Doc Maynard engineered a peninsular independence movement; King County lost what is now Kitsap County, but preserved its entertainment industry.
The King County Executive (currently Dow Constantine) heads the county's executive branch. The King County Prosecuting Attorney (currently Dan Satterberg), Elections Director, Sheriff (currently John Urquhart), and the King County Assessor are also elected executive positions. Judicial power is vested in the King County Superior Court and the King County District Court. Seattle houses the King County Courthouse.
King County is represented in the United States Congress through a near-entirety of the population in the 7th and 9th Congressional Districts, a majority of the population in the 8th Congressional District and a plurality of the population in the 1st Congressional District. In the state legislature, King contains the entirety of the 5th, 11th, 33rd, 34th, 36th, 37th, 41st, 43rd, 45th, 46th, 47th, and 48th legislative districts as well as the near-entirety of the 30th legislative district, about one-half of the 32nd legislative district, about one-third of the 1st and 31st legislative district, and a mere 627 people in the 39th legislative district.
The people of King County voted on September 5, 1911 to create a Port District. King County's Port of Seattle was established as the first Port District in Washington State. The Port of Seattle is King County's only Port District. It is governed by five Port Commissioners, who are elected countywide and serve four-year terms. The Port of Seattle owns and operates many properties on behalf of King County's citizens, including Sea-Tac International Airport; many seaport facilities around Elliott Bay, including its original property, publicly owned Fishermen's Terminal, home to the North Pacific fishing fleet and the largest homeport for fishermen in the U.S. West Coast; four container ship terminals; two cruise ship terminals; the largest grain export terminal in the U.S. Pacific Northwest; three public marinas; 22 public parks; and nearly 5,000 acres of industrial lands in the Ballard-Interbay and Lower Duwamish industrial centers.
|2012||69.07% 668,004||28.51% 275,700|
|2008||70.30% 648,230||28.17% 259,716|
|2004||64.95% 580,378||33.69% 301,043|
|2000||60.02% 476,700||34.40% 273,171|
|1996||56.38% 417,846||31.41% 232,811|
|1992||50.23% 391,050||27.36% 212,986|
|1988||53.88% 349,663||44.78% 290,574|
|1984||46.71% 298,620||52.09% 332,987|
|1980||39.16% 235,046||45.42% 272,567|
|1976||45.20% 248,743||50.80% 279,382|
|1972||40.1% 212,509||56.4% 298,707|
|1968||47.1% 223,469||46.0% 218,457|
|1964||59.5% 268,216||39.4% 177,598|
|1960||47.4% 208,756||50.8% 224,150|
King County, which includes Seattle, is a major center for liberal politics and is a bastion for the Democratic Party. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the county by 42 percentage points, a larger margin than any previous election. Slightly more than 29% of the population in the State of Washington reside in King County, making it a significant factor for the Democrats in a few recent close statewide elections. In 2000, it was King County that pushed Maria Cantwell's total over that of incumbent Republican Slade Gorton, winning her a seat in the United States Senate. In 2004, King County gave a lead to Democrat Christine Gregoire in the second recount in the state's razor-thin governor's race, pushing her ahead of Republican Dino Rossi, who led by 261 votes after the initial count. Rossi resided in the county at the time of the election in Sammamish.
The suburbs east and south of Seattle have historically tended to be moderate. In the 2005 County Executive race, Republican David Irons beat Democrat Ron Sims outside of Seattle (which voted 74% for Sims), but in 2004, John Kerry received landslide victories in much of the Bellevue and Redmond areas. Generally the suburbs are becoming more liberal on the state and county levels.
In 2004, voters passed a referendum reducing the size of the County Council from 13 members to 9. This resulted in all council seats ending up on the 2005 ballot.
Some residents of eastern King County have long desired to secede and form their own county. This movement was most vocal in the mid-1990s (see Cedar County, Washington). It has recently been revived as Cascade County. According to a map published by the Seattle Times, four different geographic borders are being considered. Additional plans (see Skykomish County, Washington) also exist or have existed.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 2,307 square miles (5,980 km2), of which 2,115 square miles (5,480 km2) is land and 191 square miles (490 km2) (8.3%) is water. King County has nearly twice the land area of the state of Rhode Island. The highest point in the county is Mount Daniel at 2,426 meters (7,959 feet) above sea level.
King County borders Snohomish County to the north, Kitsap County to the west, Kittitas County to the east, and Pierce County to the south. It also shares a small border with Chelan County to the northeast. King County includes Vashon Island and Maury Island in Puget Sound.
National protected areas
- Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (part, also in Skagway, Alaska)
- Snoqualmie National Forest (part)
As of the census of 2010, there were 1,931,249 people, 789,232 households, and 461,510 families residing in the county. The population density was 817 people per square mile (315/km²). There were 742,237 housing units at an average density of 349 per square mile (135/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 68.7% White, 6.2% Black or African American, 0.8% Native American, 14.6% Asian, 0.8% Pacific Islander, 3.9% of some other race and 5.0% from two or more races. 8.9% of the population were Hispanic or Latino, of any race.
There were 789,232 households, of which 27.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.3% were married couples living together, 9.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 41.5% were non-families. 31.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.50% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.4 and the average family size was 3.05.
In the county, the age distribution was as follows: 21.4% were under the age of 18, 6.7% from 20 to 24, 31.5% from 25 to 44, 26.9% from 45 to 64, and 10.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37.1 years. For every 100 females there were 99.10 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.30 males.
The median income for a household in the county in 2010 was $68,065, and the median income for a family was $87,010. Males had a median income of $45,802 versus $34,321 for females. The per capita income for the county was $29,521. About 6.4% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.5% of those under age 18 and 8.6% of those age 65 or over.
According to the 2000 census, 13.2% of the population were of German ancestry, while 9.1% English, 8.3% Irish and 5.5% Norwegian ancestry. 81.7% spoke only English at home, while 4.2% spoke Spanish, 2.3% Chinese (incl. all variations), 1.5% Vietnamese, 1.3% Tagalog, and 1.0% Korean.
- Auburn School District
- Bellevue School District
- Enumclaw School District
- Federal Way School District
- Highline School District
- Issaquah School District
- Kent School District
- Lake Washington School District
- Mercer Island School District
- Northshore School District
- Renton School District
- Riverview School District
- Seattle Public Schools
- Shoreline School District
- Snoqualmie Valley School District
- Tahoma School District
- Tukwila School District
See also Cities in King County.
- Auburn (partial)
- Beaux Arts Village
- Black Diamond
- Bothell (partial)
- Clyde Hill
- Des Moines
- Federal Way
- Hunts Point
- Lake Forest Park
- Maple Valley
- Mercer Island
- Milton (partial)
- Normandy Park
- North Bend
- Pacific (partial)
- Yarrow Point
Census-designated places (CDPs)
- Ames Lake
- Boulevard Park
- Bryn Mawr-Skyway
- Cottage Lake
- East Renton Highlands
- Fall City
- Lake Holm
- Lake Marcel-Stillwater
- Lake Morton-Berrydale
- Lakeland North
- Lakeland South
- Maple Heights-Lake Desire
- Shadow Lake
- Snoqualmie Pass (partial)
- Union Hill-Novelty Hill
- White Center
- Wilderness Rim
- "State & County QuickFacts". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
- "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
- Toledo Blade - Google News Archive Search
- Spokane Chronicle - Google News Archive Search
- Sims, Ron. "Motion redesignating King County's name". Archived from the original on 2009-05-14. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
- Ervin, Keith (February 28, 2006). "Former governor now opposing WASL test for diploma". The Seattle Times.
- "Executive praises County Council for approval of new logo". 2007-12-29. Archived from the original on 2007-11-02.
- "Milestones for Washington State History — Part 2: 1851 to 1900". HistoryLink.org. 2003-03-06.
- Reinartz, Kay. "History of King County Government 1853–2002". Archived from the original on 2007-12-01. Retrieved 2007-12-29.
- Bill Speidel, Doc Maynard, The Man Who Invented Seattle (Seattle: Nettle Creek Publishing Co., 1978) (ISBN 0-914890-02-6).
- The Seattle Times http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002094147_gov18m.html
|url=missing title (help).
- King County Journal: Proposal would ease creation of new county
- King County Journal: Calls for new county intensify - Rural rage revives drive to escape Seattle influence
- Cascade County (GIF)
- "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2011-02-12. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
- "U.S. Decennial Census". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
- "Historical Census Browser". University of Virginia Library. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
- "Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
- "Census 2000 PHC-T-4. Ranking Tables for Counties: 1990 and 2000". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
- "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2011-05-14.
- "Centers of Population by State: 2010". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 22, 2014.
- "Centers of Population by County: 2010". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 22, 2014.
|Wikivoyage has a travel guide for King County.|
- King County website
- King country Sheriff
- King County Property Parcel Viewer
- King County Snapshots presents King County, Washington, through 12,000 historical images carefully chosen from twelve cultural heritage organizations' collections. These catalogued 19th and 20th century images portray people, places, and events in the county's urban, suburban, and rural communities.
||Snohomish County||Chelan County|
|Pierce County||Kittitas County|