Estado de Washington

The state

Get to know Estado de Washington

The State of Washington is in the northwest of the United States, on the Pacific coast and bordering Canada, and should not be confused with the nation's capital, Washington (D.C.), on the east coast. The state capital is Olympia; the largest city is Seattle, on the shores of Puget Bay (Puget Sound).

Seattle has the Space Needle, an observation tower built for the 1962 World's Fair, Pike Place Market, a waterfront market with fishmongers and flower stalls, the Museum of Pop Culture and Chihuly Garden and Glass, featuring glass sculptures. The city is known for its coffee and for 1990s rock.

To the west, across the bay, Port Angeles is the gateway to Olympic National Park, a UNESCO site that combines mountains with glaciers, the Hoh temperate rainforest and rocky Pacific beaches. Southeast of Seattle, Ashford lies by the southwest entrance to Mount Rainier National Park, a 4,392 m volcano covered in glaciers, with the flowering meadows of Paradise.

To the north, the San Juan Islands are visited by ferry, and to the east, beyond the Cascade Range, the climate is dry, with wineries in the Yakima and Walla Walla valleys. On the plate: Pacific salmon, oysters and Dungeness crab.