Coordinates	39°44′21″N104°59′5″N
name	Seattle
settlement type	City
Official name	City of Seattle
nickname	The Emerald City, Seatown, Rain City, Jet City, Gateway to Alaska, Gateway to The Pacific, Queen City
image seal	Seattle seal.png
map caption	Location of Seattle in King County and Washington
pushpin map	USA2
pushpin map caption	Location in the United States
coordinates region	US-WA
subdivision type	Country
subdivision type1	State
subdivision type2	County
subdivision name	USA
subdivision name1	Washington
subdivision name2	King
established title	Incorporated
established date	December 2, 1869
leader title	Mayor
leader name	Michael McGinn
Leader title1	City Council
Leader name1	List of Councilors
Unit pref	US
area magnitude	1 E9
area total km2	369.2
area total sq mi	142.5
area land sq mi	83.87
area water sq mi	58.67
area land km2	217.2
area metro km2	21,202
area metro sq mi	8,186
area water km2	152|.0
population as of	April 1, 2010
population total	608,660 (US: 23rd)
population urban	2,712,205
population metro	3,407,848 (US: 15th)
combined statistical area	4,087,033 (US: 12th)
population density sq mi	7361
population blank1 title	Demonym
population blank1	Seattleite
timezone	PST
utc offset	-8
timezone dst	PDT
utc offset dst	-7
postal code type	ZIP codes
postal code
area code	206
elevation m	0–158
elevation ft	0–520
website	www.seattle.gov
blank name	FIPS code
blank info	53-63000
blank1 name	GNIS feature ID
blank1 info	1512650
footnotes	}}

Seattle ( ) is the northernmost major city in the contiguous United States, and the largest city in the Pacific Northwest and the state of Washington. It is a major seaport situated on a narrow isthmus between Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington, about south of the Canada – United States border, and it is named after Chief Sealth "Seattle", of the Duwamish and Suquamish native tribes. Seattle is the center of the Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue metropolitan statistical area--the 15th largest metropolitan area in the United States, and the largest in the northwestern United States. Seattle is the county seat of King County and is the major economic, cultural and educational center in the region. The 2010 census found that Seattle is home to 608,660 residents within a metropolitan area of some 3.4 million inhabitants. The Port of Seattle, which also operates Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, is a major gateway for trade with Asia and cruises to Alaska, and is the 8th largest port in the United States in terms of container capacity.

Seattle is the western terminus of I-90 and is on the I-5 corridor, about south of Vancouver, British Columbia, and north of Portland, Oregon. The city of Victoria, British Columbia's capital, is about to the northwest (about by passenger ferry) while the eastern Washington hub city of Spokane lies to the east.

The Seattle area has been inhabited for at least 4,000 years, but European settlement began only in the mid-19th century. The first permanent European-descended settlers were Arthur A. Denny and his group of travelers, subsequently known as the Denny Party, who arrived November 13, 1851. Early settlements in the area were called "New York-Alki" ("Alki" meaning "by and by" in Chinook Jargon) and "Duwamps". In 1853, Doc Maynard suggested that the main settlement be renamed "Seattle", an anglicized rendition of the name of Sealth, the chief of the two local tribes. From 1869 until 1982, Seattle was known as the "Queen City". Seattle's current official nickname is the "Emerald City", the result of a contest held in 1981; the reference is to the lush evergreen forests of the area. Seattle is also referred to informally as the "Gateway to Alaska", "Rain City", and "Jet City", the last from the local influence of Boeing. Seattle residents are known as ''Seattleites''.

Seattle is the birthplace of rock legend Jimi Hendrix and the rock music style known as "grunge," which was made famous by local groups Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. In more recent years, Seattle has been known for indie rock music. The city has a reputation for heavy coffee consumption; coffee companies founded or based in Seattle include Starbucks, Seattle's Best Coffee, and Tully's. There are also many successful independent artisanal espresso roasters and cafes.

Researchers at Central Connecticut State University consistently rank Seattle and Minneapolis as the two most literate cities among America's largest cities. Additionally, survey data from the United States Census Bureau indicate that Seattle has a higher percentage of college graduates than any other major American city, with approximately 53.8% of residents aged twenty-five and older holding a bachelor degree or higher.

In terms of per capita income, a study by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis ranked the Seattle metropolitan area 17th out of 363 metropolitan areas in 2006. Seattle has particularly strong information technology, aviation, architecture and recreational industries. It is particularly known as a hotbed of "green" technologies, stemming in part from the strong and relatively non-controversial stances its public leaders have taken on policies regarding urban design, building standards, clean energy and climate change (Seattle in February 2010 committed itself to becoming North America's first "climate neutral" city, with a goal of reaching zero net per capita greenhouse gas emissions by 2030).

Seattle is ranked as one of the most car-congested cities in the United States, and efforts to promote compact development and transportation choices are perennial policy issues. The railways and streetcars that once dominated its transportation system were largely replaced with an extensive network of bus routes for those living near the city center, and the city's outward growth caused automobiles to become the main mode of transportation for much of the population in the middle to late 20th century. However, efforts to reverse this trend at the municipal and state levels have resulted in new commuter rail service that connects Seattle to Everett and Tacoma, a regional Link Light Rail system that extends south from the city core to SeaTac Airport, and an inner-city South Lake Union Streetcar network which extends from downtown to the South Lake Union area.

History

Founding

Archaeological excavations confirm that the Seattle area has been inhabited by humans for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived in the area, the people (now called the Duwamish Tribe) occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay.

The first European to visit the Seattle area was George Vancouver, in May 1792 during his 1791–95 expedition to chart the Pacific Northwest.

In 1851, a large party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River; they formally claimed it on September 14, 1851. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, the group who would eventually found Seattle. Members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28, 1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon and landed on Alki point during a rainstorm on November 13, 1851.

After a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and founded the village of "Dewamps" or "Duwamps" on the site of present day Pioneer Square. Charles Terry and John Low remained at the original landing location and established a village they initially called "New York", but renamed "New York Alki" in April 1853, from a Chinook word meaning, roughly, "by and by" or "someday". For the next few years, New York Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance, but in time Alki was abandoned and its residents moved across the bay to join the rest of the settlers.

David Swinson ("Doc") Maynard, one of Duwamps's founders, was the primary advocate to rename the village "Seattle" after Chief Sealth ("Seattle") of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The term, "Seattle", appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23, 1853, when the first plats for the village were filed. In 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14, 1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of trustees managing the city. Two years later, after a petition was filed by most of the leading citizens, the Legislature disincorporated the town. In 1867, a young French Canadian Catholic priest named Francis X. Prefontaine arrived in Seattle and decided to establish a parish there. During 1868–69 he built the church by raising the money at fairs in the Puget Sound area and doing much of the work himself, and in 1869 he opened Seattle’s first Catholic church at Third Avenue and Washington Street, on the site where the present-day Prefontaine Building stands. The town of Seattle remained a mere precinct of King County until late 1869 when a new petition was filed and the city was re-incorporated with a Mayor-council government.

Timber town

Seattle has a history of boom and bust cycles, as is common to cities near areas of extensive natural and mineral resources. Seattle has risen several times economically, then gone into precipitous decline, but it has typically used those periods to rebuild solid infrastructure.

The first such boom, covering the early years of the city, was fueled by the lumber industry. (During this period the road now known as Yesler Way was nicknamed "Skid Road", after the timber skidding down the hill to Henry Yesler's sawmill. This is considered a possible origin for the term which later entered the wider American lexicon as ''Skid Row''.) Like much of the American West, Seattle saw numerous conflicts between labor and management, as well as ethnic tensions that culminated in the anti-Chinese riots of 1885–1886. This violence was caused by unemployed whites who determined to drive the Chinese from Seattle (anti-Chinese riots also occurred in Tacoma). Martial law was declared, and federal troops were brought in to put down the disorder. Nevertheless, the economic success in the Seattle area was so great that when the Great Seattle fire of 1889 destroyed the central business district, a far grander city center rapidly emerged in its place. Finance company Washington Mutual, for example, was founded in the immediate wake of the fire. This boom was followed by the construction of a park system, designed by the Olmsted brothers' landscape architecture firm. However, the Panic of 1893 hit Seattle hard.

Gold Rush, World War I, and the Great Depression

The second and most dramatic boom and bust resulted from the Klondike Gold Rush, which ended the depression that had begun with the Panic of 1893; in a short time, Seattle became a major transportation center. On July 14, 1897, the ''S.S. Portland'' docked with its famed "ton of gold", and Seattle became the main transport and supply point for the miners in Alaska and the Yukon. Few of those working men found lasting wealth, however; it was Seattle's business of clothing the miners and feeding them salmon that panned out in the long run. Along with Seattle, other cities like Everett, Tacoma, Port Townsend, Bremerton, and Olympia, all in the Puget Sound region, became competitors for exchange, rather than mother-lodes for extraction, of precious metals. The boom lasted well into the early part of the 20th century and funded many new Seattle companies and products. In 1907, 19-year-old James E. Casey borrowed $100 from a friend and founded the American Messenger Company (later UPS). Other Seattle companies founded during this period include Nordstrom and Eddie Bauer. The Gold Rush era culminated in the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, which is largely responsible for the layout of today's University of Washington campus.

A shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century became massive during World War I, making Seattle somewhat of a company town; the subsequent retrenchment led to the Seattle General Strike of 1919, the first general strike in the country. A 1912 city development plan by Virgil Bogue went largely unused. Seattle was mildly prosperous in the 1920s but was particularly hard hit in the Great Depression, experiencing some of the country's harshest labor strife in that era. Violence during the Maritime Strike of 1934 cost Seattle much of its maritime traffic, which was rerouted to the Port of Los Angeles.

Seattle was also the home base of impresario Alexander Pantages who, starting in 1902, opened a number of theaters in the city exhibiting vaudeville acts and silent movies. His activities soon expanded, and the thrifty Greek went on and became one of America's greatest theater and movie tycoons. Between Pantages and his rival John Considine, Seattle was for a while the western United States' vaudeville mecca. B. Marcus Priteca, the Scottish-born and Seattle-based architect, built several theaters for Pantages, including some in Seattle. The theaters he built for Pantages in Seattle have been either demolished or converted to other uses, but many other theaters survive in other cities of the USA, often retaining the ''Pantages'' name; Seattle's surviving Paramount Theatre, on which he collaborated, was not a Pantages theater.

Post-war years: aircraft and software

War work again brought local prosperity during World War II, this time centered on Boeing aircraft. The war dispersed the city's numerous Japanese-American businessmen due to the Japanese American internment. After war, the local economy dipped. It rose again with Boeing's growing dominance in the commercial airliner market. Seattle celebrated its restored prosperity and made a bid for world recognition with the Century 21 Exposition, the 1962 World's Fair. Another major local economic downturn was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many people left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading "Will the last person leaving Seattle – Turn out the lights."

Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company separated its headquarters from its major production facilities; the headquarters were moved to Chicago. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's Renton narrow-body plant (where the 707, 720, 727, and 757 were assembled, and the 737 is assembled today) and Everett wide-body plant (assembly plant for the 747, 767, 777, and 787). The company's credit union for employees, BECU, remains based in the Seattle area, though it is now open to all residents of Washington.

As prosperity began to return in the 1980s, the city was stunned by the Wah Mee massacre in 1983, when 13 people were killed in an illegal gambling club in the International District, Seattle's Chinatown. Beginning with Microsoft's 1979 move from Albuquerque, New Mexico to nearby Bellevue, Washington, Seattle and its suburbs became home to a number of technology companies including Amazon.com, RealNetworks, McCaw Cellular (now part of AT&T Mobility), VoiceStream (now T-Mobile USA), and biomedical corporations such as HeartStream (later purchased by Philips), Heart Technologies (later purchased by Boston Scientific), Physio-Control (later purchased by Medtronic), ZymoGenetics, ICOS (later purchased by Eli Lilly and Company) and Immunex (later purchased by Amgen). This success brought an influx of new citizens with a population increase within city limits of almost 50,000 between 1990 and 2000, and saw Seattle's real estate become some of the most expensive in the country. Many of the Seattle area's tech companies remain relatively strong, but the frenzied dot-com boom years ended in early 2001.

Seattle in this period attracted widespread attention as home to these many companies, but also by hosting the 1990 Goodwill Games and the APEC leaders conference in 1993, as well as through the worldwide popularity of grunge, a sound that had developed in Seattle's independent music scene. Another bid for worldwide attention—hosting the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference of 1999—garnered visibility, but not in the way its sponsors desired, as related protest activity and police reactions to those protests overshadowed the conference itself. The city was further shaken by the Mardi Gras Riots in 2001, and was literally shaken the following day by the Nisqually Earthquake.

The UK consulting firm Mercer, in a 2009 assessment "conducted to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments", ranked Seattle 50th worldwide in quality of living; the survey factored in political stability, personal freedom, sanitation, crime, housing, the natural environment, recreation, banking facilities, availability of consumer goods, education, and public services including transportation.

Geography

Topography

Seattle is located between Puget Sound (an inlet of the Pacific Ocean) to the west and Lake Washington to the east. The city's chief harbor, Elliott Bay, is an inlet of Puget Sound. To the west, beyond Puget Sound, are the Kitsap Peninsula and Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula; to the east, beyond Lake Washington and the eastside suburbs, are Lake Sammamish and the Cascade Range. Lake Washington's waters flow to Puget Sound through the Lake Washington Ship Canal (consisting of two man-made canals, Lake Union, and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks at Salmon Bay, ending in Shilshole Bay).

The sea, rivers, forests, lakes, and fields surrounding Seattle were once rich enough to support one of the world's few sedentary hunter-gatherer societies. The surrounding area lends itself well to sailing, skiing, bicycling, camping, and hiking year-round.

The city itself is hilly, though not uniformly so. Like Rome, the city is said to lie on seven hills; the lists vary, but typically include Capitol Hill, First Hill, West Seattle, Beacon Hill, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and the former Denny Hill. The Wallingford and Mount Baker neighborhoods are technically located on hills as well. Many of the hilliest areas are near the city center, with Capitol Hill, First Hill, and Beacon Hill collectively constituting something of a ridge along an isthmus between Elliott Bay and Lake Washington. The break in the ridge between First Hill and Beacon Hill is man-made, the result of two of the many regrading projects that reshaped the topography of the city center. The topography of the city center was also changed by the construction of a seawall and the artificial Harbor Island (completed 1909) at the mouth of the city's industrial Duwamish Waterway. The highest point within city limits is at High Point in West Seattle, roughly located near 35th Ave SW and SW Myrtle St. Other notable hills include Crown Hill, View Ridge/Wedgwood/Bryant, Maple Leaf, Phinney Ridge, Mt. Baker Ridge, Highlands/Carkeek/Bitterlake.

North of the city center, Lake Washington Ship Canal connects Puget Sound to Lake Washington. It incorporates four natural bodies of water: Lake Union, Salmon Bay, Portage Bay, and Union Bay.

Due to its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, Seattle is in a major earthquake zone. On February 28, 2001, the magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake did significant architectural damage, especially in the Pioneer Square area (built on reclaimed land, as are the Industrial District and part of the city center), but caused no fatalities. Other strong quakes occurred on January 26, 1700 (estimated at 9 magnitude), December 14, 1872 (7.3 or 7.4), April 13, 1949 (7.1), and April 29, 1965 (6.5). The 1949 quake caused eight known deaths, all in Seattle; the 1965 quake caused three deaths in Seattle directly, and one more by heart failure. Although the Seattle Fault passes just south of the city center, neither it nor the Cascadia subduction zone has caused an earthquake since the city's founding. The Cascadia subduction zone poses the threat of an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater, capable of seriously damaging the city and collapsing many buildings, especially in zones built on fill.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and water (41.16 percent of the total area).

Surrounding municipalities

Climate

thumb|Downtown Seattle averages 71 clear (sunny) days a year, with most of those days occurring between May and September

Seattle's climate is usually described as Oceanic or Marine west coast, with fairly mild, wet winters and mild, dry summers. Like much of the Pacific Northwest, according to the Köppen climate classification it falls within a cool, dry-summer subtropical zone (''Csb''), with cool-summer Mediterranean characteristics. Other climate classification systems, such as Trewartha, place it firmly in the Oceanic zone (''Do'').

Temperature extremes are moderated by adjacent Puget Sound, the greater Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. The region is largely denied Pacific storms by the Olympic Mountains and Arctic air by the Cascade Range. Despite being on the margin of the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, the city has a misleading reputation for frequent rain. This reputation comes from the frequency of precipitation in the winter. In an average year, more than 0.01 in/0.3 mm of precipitation falls on 150 days. It is cloudy 201 days and partly cloudy 93 days. The location of official weather and climatic records, the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, is located about 12 miles south of downtown and records more cloudy days and fewer partly cloudy days per year.

However, at , the city receives less precipitation than New York, Atlanta, Houston, and most cities of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Seattle was also not listed in a study that revealed the 10 rainiest cities in the continental United States. Most of the precipitation falls as drizzle or light rain. Thunderstorms are rare. Seattle reports thunder on just seven days per yearFor comparison, Fort Myers, Florida reports thunder on 93 days per year Kansas City 52, and New York City 25.

There are occasional downpours. One downpour occurred on December 2–4, 2007, when sustained hurricane-force winds and widespread heavy rainfall associated with a strong "Pineapple Express" event occurred in the greater Puget Sound area and the western parts of Washington and Oregon. People blamed heavy rain and strong winds for several power outages and at least four deaths. Interstate 5 at Chehalis, Washington was flooded and closed for almost two days. Precipitation totals exceeded 14 inches (356 mm) in some areas with winds topping out at 130 mph (209 km/hr) along coastal Oregon. It became the second wettest event in Seattle history when a little over of rain fell on Seattle in a 24 hour period. People claim the rain indirectly led to five deaths and widespread flooding and damage.

Early spring, late fall, and winter usually have many days when it does not rain. Winters are cool and wet with average lows in the mid 30s °F (2–4 °C) on winter nights. Colder weather does sometimes occur. Summers are very dry by comparison and warm, with average daytime highs around near . Hotter weather occurs during some summer days. Seattle's hottest official recorded temperature was on July 29, 2009; the coldest recorded temperature was on January 31, 1950. Eastern suburbs of Seattle, such as Bellevue and Issaquah, are typically even hotter when the temperature soars above , due to their location closer to downslope winds from the Cascade Mountains and further from Puget Sound; on Seattle's recorded hottest day of July 29, 2009, parts of south Bellevue, Renton and Issaquah peaked at .

Eighty miles (130 km) to the west, the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park on the western flank of the Olympic Mountains receives an annual average rainfall of . Sixty miles to the south of Seattle, the state capital Olympia, which is out of the rain shadow, receives an annual average rainfall of . Seattle typically receives some snowfall on an annual basis but heavy snow is rare. Single-day snowfall of six inches or greater has occurred on only 15 days since 1950, none since 1990. A recent moderate snow event happened from December 12–25, 2008, when over one foot of snow fell and stuck on much of the roads, causing widespread difficulties in a city not equipped for clearing snow. Average annual snowfall, as measured at Sea-Tac Airport, is . Seattle's daily record snowfall is on January 13, 1950. The largest snowstorm on record occurred from January 5–9, 1880, with snow drifting to in places at the end of the snow event. From January 31 to February 2, 1916, another heavy snow event occurred with of snow on the ground by the time the event was over. A very sunny and dry climate typically dominates from May to late September. An average of of rain falls in July and in August. Summer thunderstorms are rare.

The Puget Sound Convergence Zone is an important feature of Seattle's weather. In the convergence zone, air arriving from the north meets air flowing in from the south. Both streams of air originate over the Pacific Ocean; airflow is split by the Olympic Mountains to Seattle's west, then reunited to the east. When the air currents meet, they are forced upward, resulting in convection. Thunderstorms caused by this activity can occur north and south of town, but Seattle itself rarely receives more weather than occasional thunder and small hail showers. The Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm in December 2006 is an exception that brought heavy rain and winds gusting up to , not caused by the Puget Sound Convergence Zone.

One of many exceptions to Seattle's reputation as a damp location occurs in El Niño years, when marine weather systems track as far south as California and little precipitation falls in the Puget Sound area. Since the region's water comes from mountain snow packs during the dry summer months, El Niño winters can not only produce substandard skiing but can result in water rationing and a shortage of hydroelectric power the following summer.

Neighborhoods

Seattle has grown through a series of annexations of smaller neighboring communities. On May 3, 1891, Magnolia, Wallingford, Green Lake, and the University District (then known as Brooklyn) were annexed. The town of South Seattle was annexed on October 20, 1905. Between January 7 and September 12, 1907, Seattle nearly doubled its land area by annexing six incorporated towns and areas of unincorporated King County, including Southeast Seattle, Ravenna, South Park, Columbia City, Ballard, and West Seattle. Three years later, after having difficulties paying a $10,000 bill from the county, the city of Georgetown merged with Seattle. Finally, on January 4, 1954, the area between N. 85th Street and N. 145th Street was annexed, including the neighborhoods of Pinehurst, Greenwood, Blue Ridge, Crown Hill, Broadview, Bitter Lake, Haller Lake, Maple Leaf, Lake City, View Ridge and Northgate.

Former Seattle mayor Greg Nickels is among those who have called Seattle "a city of neighborhoods", although the boundaries (and even names) of those neighborhoods are often open to dispute. For example, a Department of Neighborhoods spokeswoman reported that her own neighborhood has gone from "the 'CD' (Central District) to 'Madrona' to 'Greater Madison Valley' and now 'Madrona Park'.

Over a dozen Seattle neighborhoods have Neighborhood Service Centers, originally known in 1972 as "Little City Halls" and even more have their own street fair and/or parade during the summer months. The largest of the city's 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. In addition, at least half a dozen neighborhoods have weekly farmers' markets, some with as many as fifty vendors.

Additionally, Puget Sound Regional Council designates several areas of Seattle as urban centers, defined as "designated planning districts intended to provide a mix of housing, employment and commercial and cultural amenities in a compact form that supports transit, walking and cycling." These urban centers may have the same name as a neighborhood but slightly different borders; for example, the Capitol Hill Urban Center is much smaller than the entire neighborhood.

Cityscape

Landmarks

The Space Needle, dating from the Century 21 Exposition (1962), is Seattle's most recognizable landmark, having been featured in the logo of NBA sports team the ''Seattle SuperSonics'', the television show ''Frasier'' and the backgrounds of the television series ''Dark Angel'', ''Grey's Anatomy'' and ''iCarly'', and films such as ''It Happened at the World's Fair'', ''Sleepless in Seattle'', and ''The Twilight Saga: Eclipse''. The fairgrounds surrounding the Needle have been converted into Seattle Center, which remains the site of many local civic and cultural events, such as Bumbershoot, Folklife, and the Bite of Seattle. Seattle Center plays multiple roles in the city, ranging from a public fair ground to a civic center, though recent economic losses have called its viability and future into question. The Seattle Center Monorail was also constructed for Century 21 and still runs from Seattle Center to Westlake Center, a downtown shopping mall, a little over a mile to the southeast. The Smith Tower was the tallest building on the West Coast from its completion in 1914 until the Space Needle overtook it in 1962. The late 1980s saw the construction of Seattle's two tallest skyscrapers: the 76 story Columbia Center (completed 1985) is the tallest building in the Pacific Northwest and the fourth tallest building west of the Mississippi River; the Washington Mutual Tower (completed 1988) is Seattle's second tallest building. Other notable Seattle landmarks include Pike Place Market, the Fremont Troll, the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (at Seattle Center), and the Seattle Central Library.

Starbucks has been at Pike Place Market since the coffee company was founded there in 1971. The first store is still operating a block south of its original location.

The National Register of Historic Places has over 150 Seattle listings. The city also designates its own landmarks.

Culture

Performing arts

Seattle has been a regional center for the performing arts for many years. The century-old Seattle Symphony Orchestra is among the world's most recorded and performs primarily at Benaroya Hall. The Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, which perform at McCaw Hall (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. The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras (SYSO) is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States. The city also boasts lauded summer and winter chamber music festivals organized by the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

The 5th Avenue Theatre, built in 1926, stages Broadway-style musical shows featuring both local talent and international stars. Seattle has "around 100" theatrical production companies and over two dozen live theatre venues, many of them associated with fringe theatre; Seattle is probably second only to New York for number of equity theaters (28 Seattle theater companies have some sort of Actors' Equity contract). In addition, the 900-seat Romanesque Revival Town Hall on First Hill hosts numerous cultural events, especially lectures and recitals.

Seattle is considered the home of grunge music because it was home to artists such as Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney, all of whom reached vast audiences in the early 1990s. 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, Heart, heavy metal bands Queensrÿche, Demon Hunter, Metal Church, Nevermore, Himsa, and Sunn O))), as well as such poppier rock bands as Harvey Danger, Goodness, and The Presidents of the United States of America. Such musicians as Jimi Hendrix, Duff McKagan, Nikki Sixx, and Quincy Jones spent their formative years in Seattle.

Since the grunge era, the area has hosted a diverse and influential alternative music scene. The Seattle record label Sub Pop—the first to sign Nirvana and Soundgarden—has signed such non-grunge bands as Band of Horses, Modest Mouse, Murder City Devils, Sunny Day Real Estate, Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service, Iron and Wine, Flight of the Conchords, and Fleet Foxes. Seattle has also put out a number of hiphop artists, such as Blue Scholars, Macklemore, Fresh Espresso, and critically acclaimed group Shabazz Palaces.

Earlier Seattle-based popular music acts include the collegiate folk group The Brothers Four; The Wailers, a 1960s garage band; The Ventures, an instrumental rock band; pop Young Fresh Fellows and The Posies; pop-punk The Fastbacks; the well-traveled avant-rock of Sun City Girls; and the outright punk of The Fartz (later 10 Minute Warning), The Gits.

Over the years, a number of songs have been written about Seattle.

Seattle annually sends a team of spoken word slammers to the National Poetry Slam and considers itself home to such performance poets as Buddy Wakefield, two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champ; Anis Mojgani, two-time National Poetry Slam Champ; and Danny Sherrard, 2007 National Poetry Slam Champ and 2008 Individual World Poetry Slam Champ. Seattle also hosted the 2001 national Poetry Slam Tournament. The Seattle Poetry Festival is a biennial poetry festival that (launched first as the Poetry Circus in 1997) has featured local, regional, national, and international names in poetry.

The city also has movie houses showing both Hollywood productions and works by independent filmmakers. Among these, the Seattle Cinerama stands out as one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films.

Additionally, the city is also home to the Seattle Polish Film Festival, ("SPFF") an annual film festival showcasing current and past films of Polish cinema. The festival is produced by the Seattle-Gdynia Sister City Association and awards the Seattle Spirit of Polish Cinema awards as well as the Viewers Choice of Best Film.

Media

As of 2010, Seattle has one major daily newspaper, ''The Seattle Times''. The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'', known as the ''P-I'', published a daily newspaper from 1863 to March 17, 2009 before switching to a strictly on-line publication. There is also the ''Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce'', and the University of Washington publishes ''The Daily'', a student-run publication, when school is in session. The most prominent weeklies are the ''Seattle Weekly'' and ''The Stranger''; both consider themselves "alternative" papers. ''Real Change'' is a weekly street newspaper that is sold mainly by homeless persons as an alternative to panhandling. There are also several ethnic newspapers, including the ''Northwest Asian Weekly'', and numerous neighborhood newspapers, including the ''North Seattle Journal''.

Seattle is also well served by television and radio, with all major U.S. networks represented, along with at least five other English-language stations and two Spanish-language stations. Seattle cable viewers also receive CBUT 2 (CBC) from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Non-commercial radio stations include NPR affiliates KUOW-FM 94.9 and KPLU-FM 88.5 (Tacoma). Other stations include KEXP-FM 90.3 (affiliated with EMP), college radio KBCS-FM 91.3 (affiliated with Bellevue College), and high school radio KNHC-FM 89.5, which broadcasts an electronic music radio format and is 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 KEXP in particular being a pioneer of Internet radio. Seattle also has numerous commercial radio stations, including KING-FM, one of the last commercial classical music stations in the United States.

Seattle-based online magazines Worldchanging and Grist.org were two of the "Top Green Websites" in 2007 according to TIME.

Seattle also has many online news media websites. The two largest are ''The Seattle Times'' and ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer''.

Tourism

Among Seattle's prominent annual fairs and festivals are the 24-day Seattle International Film Festival, Northwest Folklife over the Memorial Day weekend, numerous Seafair events throughout July and August (ranging from a Bon Odori celebration to the Seafair Cup hydroplane races), the Bite of Seattle, one of the largest Gay Pride festivals in the United States, and the art and music festival Bumbershoot, which programs music as well as other art and entertainment over the Labor Day weekend. All are typically attended by 100,000 people annually, as are the Seattle Hempfest and two separate Independence Day celebrations. In the past, the Gay Pride parade and festival have been centered on Capitol Hill, but since 2006, festivities have been held city-wide, and the parade has followed a route downtown along 4th Avenue from the central shopping district to Seattle Center.

Other significant events include numerous Native American pow-wows, a Greek Festival hosted by St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake, and numerous ethnic festivals (many associated with Festál at Seattle Center). There are other annual events, ranging from the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair & Book Arts Show; an anime convention, Sakura-Con; Penny Arcade Expo, a gaming convention; a two-day, 9,000-rider Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic, and specialized film festivals, such as the Maelstrom International Fantastic Film Festival, the Northwest Asian-American Film Festival, Children's Film Festival Seattle, Translation: the Seattle Transgender Film Festival, and the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

The Henry Art Gallery opened in 1927, the first public art museum in Washington. The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) opened in 1933; SAM opened a museum downtown in 1991 (expanded and reopened 2007); since 1991, the 1933 building has been SAM's Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM). SAM also operates the Olympic Sculpture Park (opened 2007) on the waterfront north of the downtown piers. The Frye Art Museum is a free museum on First Hill. Regional history collections are at the Loghouse Museum in Alki, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, the Museum of History and Industry and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Industry collections are at the Center for Wooden Boats and the adjacent Northwest Seaport, the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, and the Museum of Flight. Regional ethnic collections include the Nordic Heritage Museum, the Wing Luke Asian Museum and the Northwest African American Museum. Seattle has artist-run galleries, including 10-year veteran Soil Art Gallery, and the newer Crawl Space Gallery.

Woodland Park Zoo opened as a private menagerie in 1889, but was sold to the city in 1899. The Seattle Aquarium has been open on the downtown waterfront since 1977 (undergoing a renovation 2006). The Seattle Underground Tour is an exhibit of places that existed before the Great Fire. There are also many community centers for recreation, including Rainier Beach, Van Asselt, Rainier, and Jefferson south of the Ship Canal and Green Lake, Laurelhurst, Loyal Heights north of the Canal, and Meadowbrook.

Since the middle 1990s, Seattle has experienced significant growth in the cruise industry, especially as a departure point for Alaska cruises. In 2008, a record total of 886,039 cruise passengers passed through the city, surpassing the number for Vancouver, BC, the other major departure point for Alaska cruises.

Professional sports

!Club	!Sport	!League	!Venue	!Established	!Championships
Seattle Grizzlies	Australian Football		Mosier Park	1998	0
Seattle Mist	Football		ShoWare Center	2009	N/AQ
Seattle Mariners	Baseball		Safeco Field	1977	0
Seattle Seahawks			CenturyLink Field	1976	0
Seattle Sounders FC	Soccer		CenturyLink Field	2007	2
Seattle Storm	Basketball		KeyArena	2000	2
Seattle SuperSonics*	Basketball		KeyArena	1967	1
Seattle Thunderbirds	Ice hockey		ShoWare Center	1977	0
	Ice Hockey		Olympic View Ice Arena	2005	4

Seattle's professional sports history began at the start of the 20th century with the PCHA's Seattle Metropolitans, which in 1917 became the first American hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. Today Seattle has three major professional sports teams: The National Football League's Seattle Seahawks, Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners, and Major League Soccer's Seattle Sounders FC. Other sports teams include the 2004 and 2010 Women's National Basketball Association champions, Seattle Storm. From 1967 to 2008 Seattle was also home to an NBA franchise, the Seattle SuperSonics, who were the 1978–79 NBA champions. The team relocated to Oklahoma City after the 2007–08 season. The Seattle Thunderbirds are a major-junior hockey team that plays in one of the Canadian major-junior hockey leagues, the WHL (Western Hockey League). The Thunderbirds moved to nearby Kent, Washington during the 2008–2009 season. The Seattle Sounders FC began play in Major League Soccer in 2009.

The Major League Baseball All-Star game was held in Seattle twice, first at the Kingdome in 1979 and again at Safeco Field in 2001. That same year, the Seattle Mariners tied the all-time single regular season wins record with 116 wins. The NBA All-Star game was also held in Seattle twice, the first in 1974 at the Seattle Center Coliseum and the second in 1987 at the Kingdome.

In 2006, CenturyLink Field hosted the 2005–06 NFL playoffs. In 2008, CenturyLink Field hosted the first game of the 2007–08 NFL playoffs, in which the Seahawks defeated the Washington Redskins, 35–14. CenturyLink Field also serves as the home field for the Seattle Sounders FC of Major League Soccer. Seattle also boasts a strong history in collegiate sports. The University of Washington and Seattle University are NCAA Division I schools.

Outdoor activities

Seattle's mild, temperate marine climate allows year-round outdoor recreation, including walking, cycling, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, motor boating, sailing, team sports, and swimming. In town, many people walk around Green Lake, through the forests and along the bluffs and beaches of Discovery Park (the largest park in the city) in Magnolia, along the shores of Myrtle Edwards Park on the Downtown waterfront, along the shoreline of Lake Washington at Seward Park, along Alki Beach in West Seattle, or along the Burke-Gilman Trail. Also popular are hikes and skiing in the nearby Cascade or Olympic Mountains and kayaking and sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and the Strait of Georgia. In 2005, ''Men's Fitness'' magazine named Seattle the fittest city in the United States.

Economy

Seattle's economy is driven by a mix of older industrial companies, and "new economy" Internet and technology companies, service, design and clean technology companies. The Port of Seattle is a major economic engine. Though it has been affected by the recent recession, Seattle has retained a comparatively strong economy, and remains a hotbed for start-up businesses, especially in green building and clean technologies: it was ranked as America's No. 1 "smarter city" based on its government policies and green economy. The Seattle housing market, especially in center-city neighborhoods, has not seen the sort of drop in value most housing markets around the nation have seen in recent years. The Seattle region's economy is increasingly diverse and multi-sectoral.

Still, very large companies dominate the business landscape. Three companies on the 2008 Fortune 500 list of the United States' largest companies, based on total revenue are headquartered in Seattle: Internet retailer Amazon.com (#100), coffee chain Starbucks (#241), and department store Nordstrom (#270). Other Fortune 500 companies popularly associated with Seattle are based in nearby Puget Sound cities. Warehouse club chain Costco (#29), the largest retail company in Washington, is based in Issaquah. Providence Health & Services, the largest health care system and the fifth largest employer, is based in Renton, Washington. Microsoft (#44) and Nintendo of America are located in Redmond. Weyerhaeuser, the forest products company (#147), is based in Federal Way. Finally, Bellevue is home to truck manufacturer PACCAR (#169), and to international mobile telephony giant T-Mobile's U.S. subsidiary, T-Mobile USA.

Prior to moving its headquarters to Chicago, aerospace manufacturer Boeing (#27) was the largest company based in Seattle. Its largest division is still headquartered in nearby Renton, and the company has large aircraft manufacturing plants in Everett and Renton, so it remains the largest private employer in the Seattle metropolitan area. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced a desire to spark a new economic boom driven by the biotechnology industry in 2006. Major redevelopment of the South Lake Union neighborhood is underway, in an effort to attract new and established biotech companies to the city, joining biotech companies Corixa (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), Immunex (now part of Amgen), Trubion, and ZymoGenetics. Vulcan Inc., the holding company of billionaire Paul Allen, is behind most of the development projects in the region. While some see the new development as an economic boon, others have criticized Nickels and the Seattle City Council for pandering to Allen's interests at taxpayers' expense. Also in 2006, ''Expansion Magazine'' ranked Seattle among the top 10 metropolitan areas in the nation for climates favorable to business expansion. In 2005, ''Forbes'' ranked Seattle as the most expensive American city for buying a house based on the local income levels.

Alaska Airlines, operating a hub at Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, maintains its headquarters in the city of SeaTac, next to the airport.

Demographics

According to the 2010 census, Seattle had a population of 608,660 and the racial composition was as follows:

White: 69.5% (Non-Hispanic Whites: 66.3%)

Asian: 13.8% (4.1% Chinese, 2.6% Filipino, 2.2% Vietnamese, 1.3% Japanese, 1.1% Korean, 0.8% Indian, 0.3% Cambodian, 0.3% Laotian, 0.2% Thai)

Black or African American: 7.9%

American Indian and Alaska Native: 0.8%

Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander: 0.4%

Some other race: 2.4%

Two or more races: 5.1%

Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 6.6% (4.1% Mexican, 0.3% Puerto Rican, 0.2% Guatemalan, 0.2% Salvadoran, 0.2% Cuban)

According to the 2006–2008 American Community Survey, English was by far the most commonly spoken language at home; approximately 78.9% of residents over the age of five spoke only English at home. Spanish was spoken by 4.5% of the population; people who spoke other Indo-European languages made up 3.9% of the population. People who spoke Asian languages at home made up 10.2% of the population. People who spoke other languages made up 2.5% of Seattle's population.

Seattle has seen a major increase in immigration in recent decades; the foreign-born population increased 40% between the 1990 and 2000 censuses. The Chinese population in the Seattle area has origins in mainland China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan. The earliest Chinese Americans that came in the late 19th and early 20th century were almost entirely from Guangdong province. The Seattle area is also home to a high Vietnamese population. In addition, the Seattle area is home to over 30,000 Somali immigrants.

As of 1999, the median income of a city household was $45,736, and the median income for a family was $62,195. Males had a median income of $40,929 versus $35,134 for females. The per capita income for the city was $30,306 11.8% of the population and 6.9% of families are below the poverty line. Of people living in poverty, 13.8% are under the age of 18 and 10.2% are 65 or older.

It is estimated that King County has 8,000 homeless people on any given night, and many of those live in Seattle. In September 2005, King County adopted a "Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness", one of the near-term results of which is a shift of funding from homeless shelter beds to permanent housing.

In 2006, after growing by 4,000 citizens per year for the previous 16 years, regional planners expected the population of Seattle to grow by 200,000 people by 2040. However, Mayor Nickels supported plans that would increase the population by 60%, or 350,000 people, by 2040 and is working on ways to accommodate this growth while keeping Seattle's single-family housing zoning laws. The Seattle City Council later voted to relax height limits on buildings in the greater part of Downtown, partly with the aim to increase residential density in the city center.

A 2006 study by UCLA indicated that Seattle has one of the highest LGBT populations per capita. With 12.9% of citizens polled identifying as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, the city ranks second of all major US cities, behind San Francisco and slightly ahead of Atlanta and Minneapolis. Greater Seattle also ranks second among major US metropolitan areas, with 6.5% being LGBT.

According to the 2000 US census interim measurements of 2004, Seattle has the fifth highest proportion of single-person households nationwide among cities of 100,000 or more residents, at 40.8%.

Government and politics

Seattle is a charter city, with a Mayor–Council form of government. Since 1911, Seattle's nine city councillors have been elected at large, rather than by geographic subdivisions. The only other elected offices are the city attorney and Municipal Court judges. All city, county, and state offices are technically non-partisan. Like most parts of the United States, government and laws are also run by a series of ballot initiatives (where people can pass or reject laws), referendums (where people can approve or reject already passed legislation), and Propositions (where specific government agencies can propose new laws/tax increases directly to the people)

Seattle's politics are strongly liberal/progressive, although there is a small libertarian movement within the metro area. It is one of the most liberal cities in the United States, with approximately 80% voting for the Democratic Party; only two precincts in Seattle—one in the Broadmoor community, and one encompassing neighboring Madison Park—had a majority of votes for Republican George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. In addition, all precincts in Seattle voted for Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, including the two precincts who had previously voted Republican in 2004. In partisan elections for the Washington State Legislature and United States Congress, nearly all elections are won by Democrats.

Seattle is one of the most politically progressive cities in North America, with an overwhelming majority of voters supporting Democratic politicians; support for liberal issues such as same-sex marriage, reproductive rights and gun control is largely taken for granted in local politics. Like much of the Pacific Northwest (which has the lowest rate of church attendance in the United States and consistently reports the highest percentage of atheism), church attendance, religious belief and political influence of religious leaders is much lower than in other parts of America. Seattle also has a thriving alternative press, with two well-established weekly newspapers, several online dailies (including the ''Seattle P.I.'', ''Publicola'' and ''Crosscut''), and a number of issue-focused publications, including the nation's two largest online environmental magazines, ''Worldchanging'' and ''Grist.org''.

Federally, Seattle is part of Washington's 7th congressional district, representated by Democrat Jim McDermott, elected in 1988 and one of Congress' most liberal members.

Education

Of the city's population over the age of 25, 53.8% (vs. a national average of 27.4%) hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and 91.9% (vs. 84.5% nationally) have a high school diploma or equivalent. The city was listed as the most literate of the country's 69 largest cities in 2005 and 2006 and the second most literate in 2007, after Minneapolis, and tied with Minneapolis for most literate in 2008 in studies conducted by Central Connecticut State University.

Seattle Public Schools desegregated without a court order but continue to struggle to achieve racial balance in a somewhat ethnically divided city (the south part of town having more ethnic minorities than the north). In 2007, Seattle's racial tie-breaking system was struck down by the United States Supreme Court, but the ruling left the door open for desegregation formulae based on other indicators (e.g., income or socioeconomic class).

The public school system is supplemented by a moderate number of private schools: five of the private high schools are Catholic, one is Lutheran, and six are secular.

Seattle is home to one of the United States's most respected public research universities, the University of Washington, as well as its professional and continuing education unit, University of Washington Educational Outreach. A study by ''Newsweek International'' in 2006 cited UW as the twenty-second best university in the world. Seattle also has a number of smaller private universities including Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University, both founded by religious groups; universities aimed at the working adult, like City University and Antioch University; colleges, such as North Seattle Community College, Seattle Central Community College, and South Seattle Community College; and a number of arts colleges, such as Cornish College of the Arts and The Art Institute of Seattle. In 2001, ''Time'' magazine selected Seattle Central Community College as community college of the year, stating the school "pushes diverse students to work together in small teams".

Infrastructure

Health systems

The University of Washington is consistently ranked among the country's top leading institutions in medical research, earning special merits for programs in neurology and neurosurgery. Seattle has seen local developments of modern paramedic services with the establishment of Medic One in 1970. In 1974, a ''60 Minutes'' story on the success of the then four-year-old Medic One paramedic system called Seattle "the best place in the world to have a heart attack".

Three of Seattle's largest medical centers are located on First Hill. Harborview Medical Center, the public county hospital, is the only Level I trauma hospital serving Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. Virginia Mason Medical Center and Swedish Medical Center's two largest campuses are also located in this part of Seattle, including the Virginia Mason Hospital. This concentration of hospitals resulted in the neighborhood's nickname "Pill Hill".

Located in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, Seattle Children's, formerly Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, is the pediatric referral center for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has a campus in the Eastlake neighborhood and also shares facilities with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and University of Washington Medical Center. The University District is home to the University of Washington Medical Center which, along with Harborview, is operated by the University of Washington. Seattle is also served by a Veterans Affairs hospital on Beacon Hill, a third campus of Swedish in Ballard, and Northwest Hospital and Medical Center near Northgate Mall.

Transportation

The first streetcars appeared in 1889 and were instrumental in the creation of a relatively well-defined downtown and strong neighborhoods at the end of their lines. The advent of the automobile sounded the death knell for rail in Seattle. Tacoma–Seattle railway service ended in 1929 and the Everett–Seattle service came to an end in 1939, replaced by inexpensive automobiles running on the recently developed highway system. Rails on city streets were paved over or removed, and the opening of the Seattle trolleybus system brought the end of streetcars in Seattle in 1941. This left an extensive network of privately owned buses (later public) as the only mass transit within the city and throughout the region.

King County Metro provides frequent stop bus service within the city and surrounding county,as well as a streetcar line between the South Lake Union neighborhood and Westlake Center in downtown. Seattle is one of the few cities in North America whose bus fleet includes electric trolleybuses. Sound Transit currently provides an express bus service within the metropolitan area; two Sounder commuter rail lines between the suburbs and downtown; and its Central Link light rail line, which opened in 2009, between downtown and Sea-Tac Airport gives the city its first rapid transit line that has intermediate stops within the city limits. Washington State Ferries, which manages the largest network of ferries in the United States and third largest in the world, connects Seattle to Bainbridge and Vashon Islands in Puget Sound and to Bremerton and Southworth on the Kitsap Peninsula.

According to the 2007 American Community Survey, 18.6% of Seattle residents used one of the three public transit systems that serve the city, giving it the highest transit ridership of all major cities without heavy or light rail prior to the completion of Sound Transit's Central Link line.The city has also been described as the fourth most walkable city in the United States.

Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, locally known as Sea-Tac Airport and located just south in the neighboring city of SeaTac, is operated by the Port of Seattle and provides commercial air service to destinations throughout the world. Closer to downtown, Boeing Field is used for general aviation, cargo flights, and testing/delivery of Boeing airliners.

The main mode of transportation, however, relies on Seattle's streets, which are laid out in a cardinal directions grid pattern, except in the central business district where early city leaders Arthur Denny and Carson Boren insisted on orienting their plats relative to the shoreline rather than to true North. Only two roads, Interstate 5 and State Route 99 (both limited-access highways), run uninterrupted through the city from north to south. State Route 99 runs through downtown Seattle on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which was built in 1953. However, due to damage sustained during the 2001 Nisqually earthquake the viaduct will be replaced by a tunnel in 2015 at a cost of US$4.25 billion.

From 2006 to 2008, transit ridership in Seattle went up by 23%, and many bus routes in the central part of the city are routinely forced to leave passengers because they are full. Seattle now has the worst traffic congestion of all American cities.

The city has started moving away from the automobile and towards mass transit. In 2006, voters in King County passed proposition 2(Transit Now) which increased bus service hours on high ridership routes and paid for five Bus Rapid Transit lines called RapidRide. After rejecting a roads and transit measure in 2007, Seattle-area voters passed a transit only measure in 2008 that increases ST Express bus service and extends the Link Light Rail system (currently with under construction) by over 30 miles, and expands and improves Sounder commuter rail service. An extension of the light rail south to the Seattle–Tacoma International Airport began service on December 19, 2009; an extension north to the University of Washington is under construction as of 2010; and further extensions are planned to reach Lynnwood to the north, Des Moines to the south, and Bellevue and Redmond to the east by 2023. Mayor Michael McGinn hopes to put another transit measure on the 2011 ballot to build light rail from Downtown Seattle to Ballard, Fremont, and West Seattle after seeing a surprisingly large amount of support for it from its campaign (and now city's) policy forum.

Utilities

Water and electric power are municipal services, provided by Seattle Public Utilities and Seattle City Light respectively. Other utility companies serving Seattle include Puget Sound Energy (natural gas); Seattle Steam Company (steam); Waste Management, Inc and CleanScapes, Inc. (curbside recycling and solid waste removal); and Verizon Communications, Qwest and Comcast (telephone, Internet, and cable television).

See also

List of people from Seattle

List of Seattle sister cities

National Register of Historic Places listings in Seattle, Washington

Sustainable Seattle

Tillicum Village

References

Bibliography

Further reading

Sanders, Jeffrey Craig. ''Seattle and the Roots of Urban Sustainabilty: Inventing Ectopia'' (University of Pittsburgh Press; 2010) 288 pages; the rise of environmental activism

External links

Historylink.org, history of Seattle and Washington.

Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project

Pacific Northwest Labor History Projects

Seattle, a National Park Service ''Discover Our Shared Heritage'' Travel Itinerary

Category:Cities in Washington (state) Category:Cities in the Seattle metropolitan area Category:County seats in Washington (state) Category:Populated places in King County, Washington Category:Port settlements in Washington (state) Category:Populated places established in 1853 Category:Isthmuses Category:Populated places on Puget Sound

af:Seattle am:ስያትል ar:سياتل، واشنطن zh-min-nan:Seattle be:Горад Сіэтл be-x-old:Сіетл bs:Seattle bg:Сиатъл ca:Seattle cs:Seattle cy:Seattle da:Seattle de:Seattle et:Seattle el:Σιάτλ es:Seattle eo:Seattle (Vaŝingtonio) eu:Seattle fa:سیاتل fo:Seattle fr:Seattle ga:Seattle gd:Seattle gl:Seattle, Washington ko:시애틀 hi:सीऐटल hr:Seattle, Washington io:Seattle ig:Seattle id:Seattle os:Сиэтл is:Seattle it:Seattle he:סיאטל pam:Seattle, Washington ka:სიეტლი kw:Seattle sw:Seattle, Washington ht:Seattle, Washington mrj:Сиэтл la:Seattlum lv:Sietla lt:Sietlas hu:Seattle mk:Сиетл mi:Seattle mr:सिअ‍ॅटल, वॉशिंग्टन ms:Seattle nl:Seattle ja:シアトル no:Seattle nn:Seattle oc:Seattle uz:Sietl pnb:سیاٹل pap:Seattle km:ស៊ីតថល pms:Seattle nds:Seattle pl:Seattle pt:Seattle ro:Seattle qu:Seattle (Washington) ru:Сиэтл sah:Сиэтл sco:Seattle scn:Seattle simple:Seattle, Washington sk:Seattle sl:Seattle, Washington szl:Seattle sr:Сијетл sh:Seattle fi:Seattle sv:Seattle tl:Seattle, Washington ta:சியாட்டில் tt:Сиэтл th:ซีแอตเทิล tg:Сиэтл, Вашингтон tr:Seattle uk:Сієтл ug:Séatl vec:Seattle vi:Seattle vo:Seattle war:Seattle yi:סיאטל zh-yue:西雅圖 zh:西雅圖

Coordinates	39°44′21″N104°59′5″N
name	Kristine Sa
background	solo_singer
born	June 06, 1982Vietnam
origin	Toronto, Canada
instrument	vocals, piano, guitar
genre	Pop
occupation	Singer, Songwriter, TV Producer, TV Host,
years active	2002 — present
label	Nemesis Records, Jellybean Recordings
website	http://www.kristinesa.com/ }}

Kristine Sa (born June 06, 1982) is a Vietnamese American singer/songwriter as well as a television producer and host. Her career began with music in 2000, and has gone on to include a wide range of mediums.

Career

She began her singing career at the age of 17 with Nemesis Records. The release of her debut album, ''I Never Knew'' in 2002 had sales in Taiwan, Australia, and the United Kingdom. She continued her career with her second album, ''reBIRTH'' in 2004, followed by a contribution to the anime project, ''AnimeToonz3: Kristine Sa (Lemon and Lime Editions)'' in 2005, and ''Hopeless Romantic'' in 2007.

Sa also had a solo release, ''Lonely Asylum : The Demo Collection'', in 2010 and is the producer and host of ''Heart To Heart with Kristine Sa'' for the Vietnamese station SBTN. Previously, she has hosted and produced the Vietnamese American talk-shows ''The Kristine Sa Show'' on VAN-TV and ''Up Close and Personal with Kristine Sa'' on VHN-TV.

She is also known in the anime community for her involvement in Funimation Entertainment's US releases of ''Suzuka'' in 2005, ''One Piece'' in 2005, and ''Ouran High School Host Club'' in 2007. She also has concerts at anime conventions throughout the United States.

Discography

''I Never Knew'' (Nemesis Records: February 10, 2002)

# A Dose Of You

# Hold You Forever

# Gone By Fall

# The Arms Of Paradise

# Beautiful

# Nexusbeta / Parallel Fates

# We

# My Heart Still Breaks

# I Never Knew

# Wont Let Go

''reBIRTH'' (Nemesis Records: December 7, 2004)

# Take Me Somewhere

# Consequence

# Just Drive

# Take Me Somewhere (Remix)

# A Dose Of You (Remix)

# Gone By Fall (Remix)

# The Arms Of Paradise (Remix)

# A Dose Of You (Acoustic)

# Beauty To Me

# Happy

# The Ocean's Sky *

: * Track #11 ("The Ocean's Sky") available on Special Edition CD only.

''AnimeToonz3: Lemon Edition'' (Jellybean Recordings: November 11, 2005)

# Every Heart - Inuyasha [DJ Jinnai full vocal remix]

# The Real Folk Blues - Cowboy Bebop [DJ Jinnai full vocal remix]

# Urusei Yatsura No Teema - Urusei Yatsura [Bit Shifter full vocal remix]

# Find The Way - Gundam Seed [DJ Jinnai full vocal remix]

# Dearest - Inuyasha [DJ Jinnai full vocal remix]

# Yapapa - Ranma 1/2 [YMCK dub mix]

# Find The Way - Gundam Seed [Architekt 9 full vocal remix]

# Every Heart - Inuyasha [Gomi dub mix]

# Yapapa - Ranma 1/2 [DJ Jinnai full vocal remix]

# The Real Folk Blues - Cowboy Bebop [Masi & Melo vocal club mix]

# Every Heart - Inuyasha [John Creamer dub mix]

''AnimeToonz3: Lime Edition'' (Jellybean Recordings: November 11, 2005)

# Every Heart - Inuyasha [Gomi full vocal remix]

# The Real Folk Blues - Cowboy Bebop [Masi & Melo raw vocal remix]

# Urusei Yatsura No Teema - Urusei Yatsura [DJ Jinnai full vocal remix]

# Yapapa - Ranma 1/2 [YMCK full vocal remix]

# Candy Candy - Candy Candy [DJ Jinnai full vocal remix]

# Find The Way - Gundam Seed [Architekt 9 dub mix]

# Yapapa - Ranma 1/2 [Beta full vocal remix]

# Urusei Yatsura No Teema - Urusei Yatsura [Bit Shifter dub mix]

# The Real Folk Blues - Cowboy Bebop [Masi & Melo dub mix]

# Every Heart - Inuyasha [John Creamer full vocal remix]

''Hopeless Romantic'' (Nemesis Records: February 27, 2007)

# Intro

# Don't Come Home

# Snooze (Don't Wake Me Up)

# In My Mind

# Redemption

# Consequence

# Forbidden Fruit

# Lose Myself

# I Would Have

# I Got What U Want

# The Last Race

# Goodnight Love

''Lonely Asylum : The Demo Collection'' (Independently released digital EP, January 3, 2010)

# Lonely Asylum

# No More Roses

# Nobody

# If It's Over

# My Last Goodbye

# The Song Ends

References

External links

Nemesis Records

Kristine Sa Official

Kristine Sa @ MySpace

Kristine Sa @ Xanga

Category:Canadian female singers Category:Canadian singer-songwriters Category:Naturalized citizens of Canada Category:Canadian people of Vietnamese descent Category:Vietnamese emigrants to Canada Category:Vietnamese singers Category:Singers of Vietnamese descent Category:York University alumni Category:1982 births Category:Living people Category:Canadian musicians of Asian descent

es:Kristine Sa fi:Kristine Sa vi:Kristine Sa

Coordinates	39°44′21″N104°59′5″N
name	Anne
succession	Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland
moretext	(more...)
reign	8 March 1702 – 1 May 1707
coronation	23 April 1702
cor-type	britain
predecessor	William III & II
succession1	Queen of Great Britain and Ireland
moretext1	(more...)
reign1	1 May 1707 – 1 August 1714
successor1	George I
spouse	Prince George of Denmark
issue	Prince William of Denmark
issue-pipe	14 other children
issue-link	#Issue
house	House of Stuart
father	James II & VII
mother	Anne Hyde
birth date	February 06, 166516 February 1665 (N.S.)
birth place	St. James's Palace, London
death date	August 01, 171412 August 1714 (N.S.)
death place	Kensington Palace, London
place of burial	Westminster Abbey, London
signature	Firma Reina Ana.svg }}

Anne (6 February 1665 – 1 August 1714) ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702, succeeding her cousin and brother-in-law William III of England and II of Scotland. Her Catholic father, James II and VII, was deemed by the English Parliament to have abdicated when he was forced to retreat to France during the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9; her brother-in-law and sister then became joint monarchs as William III & II and Mary II. After Mary's death in 1694, William continued as sole monarch until his own death in 1702.

On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union 1707, England and Scotland were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain. Anne became its first sovereign, while continuing to hold the separate crown of Queen of Ireland and the title of Queen of France. Therefore she was, technically, the last Queen of England and the last Queen of Scots. Anne reigned for twelve years until her death in August 1714.

Queen Anne's life was marked by many crises, both personal and relating to succession of the Crown and religious polarisation. Because she died without surviving children, Anne was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. She was succeeded by her second cousin, George I, of the House of Hanover, who was a descendant of the Stuarts through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, daughter of James I and VI.

Early life

Anne was born at St. James's Palace, London, the fourth child and second daughter of James, Duke of York (afterwards James II and VII), and his first wife, Anne Hyde. Anne Hyde was the daughter of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. Queen Anne's paternal uncle was King Charles II, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. She was baptised into the Anglican faith at the Chapel Royal at St. James's, and her older sister, Mary, was one of her godparents. The Duke and Duchess of York had eight children, but Anne and Mary were the only ones to survive into adulthood.

As a child, Anne suffered from an eye infection. For medical treatment, she was sent to France, where she lived with her grandmother, the Queen Dowager, Henrietta Maria, at the Château de Colombes near Paris. Following her grandmother's death in 1669, Anne lived with an aunt, Henriette Anne, Duchess of Orléans, who had two daughters of her own, Marie Louise and Anne Marie d'Orléans. On the sudden death of her aunt in 1670, Anne returned to England. Her mother died the following year.

In about 1673, Anne made the acquaintance of Sarah Jennings, who became her close friend and one of her most influential advisors. Jennings later married John Churchill (the future Duke of Marlborough), who was to become Anne's most important general.

In 1673, Anne's father's conversion to Roman Catholicism became public. He married a Catholic princess, Mary of Modena, who was only six and half years older than Anne. On the instructions of Charles II, Anne and her sister Mary were raised as Protestants. They were brought up separated from their father in their own establishment at Richmond, London, in the care of Colonel Edward and Lady Frances Villiers. Their education was focused on the teachings of the Anglican church. As the King had no surviving legitimate children, the Duke of York was next in the line of succession, followed by his two surviving daughters from his first marriage, Mary and Anne. Over the next ten years, the new Duchess of York had ten children, but all were either stillborn or died in infancy, leaving Mary and Anne second and third in the line of succession after their father.

Marriage

In November 1677, Anne's elder sister married William of Orange, but she could not attend the wedding as she was confined to her room with smallpox. By the time she recovered, Mary had already left for her new life in the Netherlands. Lady Frances Villiers contracted the disease, and died. Anne's aunt Lady Clarendon (the wife of Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon) was appointed as her new governess. A year later, Anne and her stepmother visited Mary in Holland, and a second visit (to Brussels) followed at the end of August 1679. She visited her father and stepmother in Scotland from July 1681 until May 1682. It was her last journey outside England.

On 28 July 1683, Anne married in the Chapel Royal the Protestant Prince George of Denmark, brother of King Christian V of Denmark (and her second cousin once removed through Frederick II). Though it was an arranged marriage, it was one of great domestic happiness. Sarah Churchill became Anne's Lady of the Bedchamber. By Anne's desire to mark their mutual intimacy and affection, all deference due to her rank was abandoned and Anne and Sarah called each other Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman respectively. Within months of the marriage, Anne was pregnant but the baby was stillborn. Anne recovered quickly, and gave birth to two daughters in quick succession, Mary and Anne Sophia.

Accession of James II and VII

When Charles II died in 1685 (possibly converting to Catholicism on his deathbed), Anne's father became king as James II and VII. James was not well received by the English people, who were concerned about his Catholicism. Anne shared the general concern, and continued to attend Anglican services. As her sister Mary lived in the Netherlands, Anne and her family were the only members of the royal family attending Protestant religious services in England. When her father tried to get Anne to baptise her youngest daughter into the Catholic faith, Anne burst into tears. "The Church of Rome is wicked and dangerous", she wrote to her sister, "their ceremonies – most of them – plain downright idolatry."

In early 1687, within a matter of days, Anne had another stillborn child and her husband and two young daughters caught smallpox. Both of Anne's daughters died. Rachel Wriothesley, Lady Russell, wrote that George and Anne had "taken [the deaths] very heavily ... Sometimes they wept, sometimes they mourned in words; then sat silent, hand in hand; he sick in bed, and she the carefullest nurse to him that can be imagined." Later that year, she suffered another stillbirth.

Public alarm at James's Catholicism increased when his wife, Mary of Modena, became pregnant for the first time since James's accession. In letters to her sister Mary, Anne raised suspicions about the pregnancy, and implied that the Queen was not pregnant at all but only faking in an attempt to introduce a false heir. She wrote, "they will stick at nothing, be it never so wicked, if it will promote their interest ... there may be foul play intended." The following month, Anne became dangerously ill, perhaps after a miscarriage or because of worry over the Queen's pregnancy, and left London to recuperate in the spa town of Bath, Somerset.

The Queen gave birth to a son (James Francis Edward) on 10 June 1688, and a Catholic dynasty became more likely. Anne was still at Bath, so she did not witness the birth, which fed the belief that the child was spurious; Anne may have left the capital deliberately to avoid being present, or because she was genuinely ill, but it is most probable that James desired the exclusion of all Protestants, including his daughter, from affairs of state. "I shall never now be satisfied", Anne wrote to her sister Mary, "whether the child be true or false. It may be it is our brother, but God only knows ... one cannot help having a thousand fears and melancholy thoughts, but whatever changes may happen you shall ever find me firm to my religion and faithfully yours."

To scotch rumours of a suppositious child, James had 40 witnesses attend a Privy Council meeting, but Anne claimed she could not attend because she was pregnant herself and then declined to read the depositions because it was "not necessary".

"Glorious Revolution"

In November 1688, Anne's brother-in-law, William of Orange, invaded England with the intent to dethrone the unpopular King in what became known as the "Glorious Revolution". Forbidden by James to pay Mary a projected visit in the spring of 1688, Anne did correspond with her and was no doubt aware of William's plans to invade the country. On the advice of the Churchills (Anne's conduct during this period was probably influenced a great deal by them) she refused to side with James after William landed and wrote instead to William, declaring her approval of his action. Churchill abandoned the king on the 24th of that month, Prince George on the 25th, and when James returned to London on the 26th, he found that Anne and her lady-in-waiting had done likewise the previous night. He put the women under house arrest in the Palace of Whitehall. They fled from Whitehall by a back staircase, and put themselves under the care of the bishop of London, spending one night in his house, and subsequently arrived on 1 December at Nottingham. Then she travelled to Oxford, where she met Prince George in triumph, escorted by a large company. Like Mary, she was reproached for showing no concern at the news of the King's flight, and instead merely asked for her usual game of cards. Her justification was that "she was used to play and never loved to do anything that looked like an affected constraint." She returned to London on 19 December, where she was at once visited by her brother-in-law William.

In 1689, a Convention Parliament assembled and declared that James had abdicated the realm when he attempted to flee, and that the Throne was therefore vacant. The Crown was offered to Mary, but accepted jointly by William and Mary, who thereafter ruled as the only joint monarchs in British history. The Bill of Rights 1689 settled succession to the Throne; Anne and her descendants were to be in the line of succession after William and Mary. They were to be followed by any descendants of William by a future marriage.

On 24 July 1689, Anne gave birth to a son, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, who, though ill, survived infancy. As King William and Queen Mary had no children, it looked as though Anne's son would eventually inherit the crown.

William and Mary

Soon after their accession, William and Mary rewarded Churchill by granting him the Earldom of Marlborough. Their subsequent treatment of the Marlboroughs, however, was not as favourable. In January 1692, suspecting that Marlborough was secretly conspiring with the Jacobites (his sister was James II's mistress), Mary dismissed him from all his offices. In a public show of support for the Marlboroughs, Anne continued to socialize with them, and refused her sister's request to dismiss Sarah from her household. The Duchess of Marlborough was subsequently removed from the royal household by the Lord Chamberlain, and Anne angrily left her royal lodgings and took up residence at Syon House, the home of the Duke of Somerset. Anne was stripped of her guard of honour; courtiers were forbidden to visit her, and civic authorities were instructed to ignore her.

When Mary died of smallpox in 1694, William continued to reign alone. Anne then became his heir apparent, since any children he might have by another wife were assigned to a lower place in the line of succession. Seeking to improve his own popularity (which had always been much lower than that of his wife), he restored Anne to her previous honours, and allowed her to reside in St. James's Palace. At the same time William kept her in the background and refrained from appointing her regent during his absence.

In 1695, William sought to win Anne's favour by restoring Marlborough to all of his offices. In return, Anne gave her support to William's government, though about this time, in 1696—according to James, in consequence of the near prospect of the throne—she wrote to her father asking for his leave to wear the crown at William's death, and promising its restoration at a convenient opportunity. The unfounded rumour that William contemplated settling the succession after his death on James's son, provided he was educated a Protestant in England, may possibly have alarmed her.

Act of Settlement

By 1700, Anne had been pregnant at least seventeen times; she miscarried or gave birth to stillborn children at least twelve times. Of the remaining five children, four died before reaching the age of two years. Her final pregnancy ended on 25 January 1700, when she gave birth to a stillborn son. Based on her foetal losses and physical symptoms, a medical historian has diagnosed disseminated lupus erythematosus. Other suggested causes are rhesus incompatibility, diabetes, and intrauterine growth retardation. Rhesus incompatibility, however, generally worsens with successive pregnancies, and so may not fit with the pattern of Anne's pregnancies, as her only son to survive infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester, was born after a series of stillbirths.

Anne's sole surviving child, William, Duke of Gloucester, died at the age of eleven on 30 July 1700. Anne ordered her household to observe a day of mourning every year on the anniversary of his death. William and Mary had not had any children; thus, Anne was the only individual remaining in the line of succession established by the Bill of Rights 1689. If the line of succession were totally extinguished, then it would have been open for the deposed King James or his son James Francis Edward Stuart (the "Old Pretender") to claim the Throne.

To address the succession crisis and preclude a Catholic restoration, Parliament enacted the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided that, failing the issue of Princess Anne and of William III by any future marriage, the Crown would go to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her Protestant descendants. Sophia was the granddaughter of James I and VI through his daughter Elizabeth, who was the sister of Anne's grandfather Charles I. Dozens of genealogically senior claimants (including Sophia's elder sister) were disregarded due to their Catholicism. Anne's father died in September 1701. His widow, Anne's stepmother, the former Queen, wrote to Anne to inform her that her father forgave her and remind her of her promise to seek the restoration of his line. Anne, however, had already acquiesced to the new line of succession created by the Act of Settlement.

Reign

War of the Spanish Succession

William III died on 8 March 1702 and Anne became Queen. She was immediately popular. In a speech to the Parliament of England she disassociated herself from her late Dutch brother-in-law and said, "As I know my heart to be entirely English, I can very sincerely assure you there is not anything you can expect or desire from me which I shall not be ready to do for the happiness and prosperity of England."

Soon after her accession, Anne appointed her husband Lord High Admiral, giving him nominal control of the Royal Navy. Anne gave control of the army to Lord Marlborough, whom she appointed Captain-General. Marlborough also received numerous honours from the Queen; he was created a Knight of the Garter and was elevated to the rank of duke. The Duchess of Marlborough was appointed Groom of the Stole, Mistress of the Robes, and Keeper of the Privy Purse.

Anne was crowned Queen on St George's Day, 23 April 1702. About two weeks later, England became embroiled in the War of the Spanish Succession. This war, in which England supported the claim of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, to succeed to the Spanish Throne, would continue until the last years of Anne's reign and dominated both foreign and domestic policy.

She re-instituted the tradition of touching for the King's evil that had been eschewed by William as papist superstition.

Act of Union

In passing the Act of Settlement, in 1701, the English Parliament neglected to consult with the Parliament of Scotland or Estates of Scotland, which, in part, wished to preserve the Stuart dynasty and its right of inheritance to the Throne. The Scottish response to the Settlement was to pass the Act of Security, a bill which stated that—failing the issue of the Queen—the Estates had the power to choose the next Scottish monarch from amongst the numerous descendants of the royal line of Scotland. The individual chosen by the Estates could not be the same person who came to the English Throne, unless various religious, economic and political conditions were met. Though it was originally not forthcoming, Royal Assent to the act was granted when the Scottish Parliament refused to impose taxes and threatened to withdraw Scottish troops from the Duke of Marlborough's army in Europe.

In its turn, the English Parliament—fearing that an independent Scotland would restore the Auld Alliance with France—responded with the Alien Act 1705, which provided that economic sanctions would be imposed and Scottish subjects would be declared aliens (putting their right to own property in England into jeopardy), unless Scotland either repealed the Act of Security or moved to unite with England. Eventually, the Estates chose the latter option, and Commissioners were appointed by Queen Anne to negotiate the terms of a union between the two countries. Articles of Union were approved by the Commissioners on 22 July 1706, agreed to by an Act of the Scottish Parliament passed on 16 January 1707 and an act of the English Parliament passed on 6 March 1707. Under the Acts, England and Scotland became one realm, a united kingdom called Great Britain, on 1 May 1707.

Two-party politics

Queen Anne's reign was further marked by the development of a two-party system as the new era of parliamentary governance unfolded and matured. Anne personally preferred moderate Tories, but "endured" the Whigs.

Because of Anne's personal preferences, her first ministry was primarily Tory. It was headed by Sidney Godolphin, 1st Baron Godolphin and Anne's favorite John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, both moderate Tories. However, it also contained such high Tories as Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, and Anne's uncle Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester. Marlborough and Godolphin kept up connections to the Whigs through the Speaker of the House of Commons, Robert Harley.

The Whigs vigorously supported the War of the Spanish Succession and became even more influential after the Duke of Marlborough won a great victory at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. Most of the High Tories, who had opposed British involvement in the land war against France, were gradually removed from office. Godolphin, Marlborough, and Harley, who had replaced Nottingham as a Secretary of State for the Northern Department, formed a ruling "triumvirate". They were forced to rely more and more on support from the Whigs, and particularly from the Junto Whigs whom Queen Anne particularly disliked. In 1706, Godolphin and Marlborough forced Anne to accept Lord Sunderland, a Junto Whig and Marlborough's son-in-law, as Harley's colleague as Secretary of State for the Southern Department.

Although this strengthened the ministry's position in Parliament, it weakened the ministry's position with the Queen, as Anne became increasingly irritated with Godolphin and with her erstwhile favorite, the Duchess of Marlborough, who supported Sunderland. The Queen turned for private advice to Harley, who was uncomfortable with Marlborough and Godolphin's turn towards the Whigs and was moving closer to supporting the Tory "blue water" policy on the war. She also turned to Abigail Hill, a cousin of the Duchess who became more amenable to Anne as her relationship with Sarah deteriorated.

The division within the ministry came to a head on 8 February 1708, when Godolphin and Marlborough insisted that the Queen had to either dismiss Harley or do without their services. When the Queen seemed to hesitate, Marlborough and Godolphin refused to attend a cabinet meeting. When Harley attempted to lead business without his erstwhile colleagues, several of those present, including the Duke of Somerset refused to participate until Godolphin and Marlborough returned.

Her hand forced, the Queen dismissed Harley on 11 February. But Godolphin and Marlborough's victory was a hollow one, as their personal relationship with Anne would never recover from the blow. Furthermore, they found themselves increasingly at the mercy of the Junto leaders. Whereas previously they had been able to determine war policy largely as they liked, their total parliamentary dependence on the Whigs meant that they had to consult with Junto leaders Lord Somers and Lord Halifax. This dependence on the hated Junto only increased the Queen's dislike of the ministry.

In July 1708, the Duchess of Marlborough came to court with a bawdy poem that implied a lesbian relationship between Anne and Abigail. The Duchess wrote to Anne telling her she had damaged her reputation by conceiving "a great passion for such a woman ... strange and unaccountable". Anne was dismayed, and wrote to the Duke of Marlborough asking that his wife "leave off teasing & tormenting me & behave herself with the decency she ought both to her friend and Queen".

Death of her husband

Anne's husband, Prince George of Denmark, died in October 1708. His leadership of the Admiralty was unpopular amongst the Whig leaders. As he lay on his deathbed, some Whigs were preparing to make a motion requesting his removal from the office of Lord High Admiral. Anne was forced to appeal to the Duke of Marlborough to ensure that the motion was not made.

Anne was devastated by the loss of her husband, and the event proved a turning point in her relationship with her old friend, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. The Duchess arrived at Kensington Palace shortly before George died, and after the death insisted that Anne left Kensington for St. James's Palace against her wishes. Anne pleaded to be left alone, and resented the Duchess's intrusive actions, which included removing a portrait of George from the Queen's bedchamber and then refusing to return it in the belief that it was natural "to avoid seeing of papers or anything that belonged to one that one loved when they were just dead".

The Whigs used the Prince's death to their own advantage. With Whigs now dominant in parliament, and Anne overbowed by the loss of her husband, they forced her to accept the Junto leaders Lord Somers and Lord Wharton into the cabinet. Their power was, however, limited by Anne's insistence on carrying out the duties of Lord High Admiral herself, and not appointing a member of the government to take Prince George's place. Undeterred, the Junto demanded the appointment of the Earl of Orford, another member of the Junto and one of Prince George's leading critics, as First Lord of the Admiralty. Anne flatly refused, and chose her own candidate, the moderate Tory Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke on 29 November 1708.

Pressure mounted on Pembroke, Godolphin and the Queen from the dissatisfied Junto Whigs, and Pembroke was forced to resign after less than a year in office. Another month of arguments followed before the Queen finally consented to put the Earl of Orford in control of the Admiralty in November 1709.

Later years

As the expensive War of the Spanish Succession grew unpopular, so did the Whig administration. Harley, now in opposition, was particularly skillful in using the issue of the cost of the war to motivate the electorate. The Queen, increasingly disdained by her ministry's policy of "no peace without Spain", finally took the opportunity to dismiss Sunderland in June 1710, Godolphin followed in August. The Junto Whigs (Somers, Wharton, and Orford) were removed from office, although Marlborough, for the moment, remained as commander of the army. In their place, she appointed a new ministry, headed by Harley, which began to seek peace with France. Harley and the Tories were ready to compromise by giving Spain to the grandson of the French King, but the Whigs could not bear to see a Bourbon on the Spanish Throne. In the parliamentary elections which soon followed, Harley used government patronage to create a large Tory majority. In January 1711, Anne forced Sarah to resign her court offices, and Abigail took over as Keeper of the Privy Purse. Harley was stabbed by the Marquis de Guiscard in March, and Anne wept at the thought he would die. He recovered slowly.

The war was resolved by outside events. The elder brother of Archduke Charles died in 1711 and Charles inherited Austria, Hungary and the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. To give him also the Spanish throne was no longer in Great Britain's interests. But the proposed Treaty of Utrecht submitted to Parliament for ratification did not go as far as the Whigs wanted to curb Bourbon ambitions. In the House of Commons, the Tory majority was unassailable, but the same was not true in the House of Lords. Seeing a need for decisive action—to erase the Whig majority in the House of Lords—Anne created twelve new peers, including Abigail's husband Samuel Masham, 1st Baron Masham. Such a mass creation of peers was unprecedented. Indeed, Elizabeth I had granted fewer peerages in 44 years than Anne did in a single day. On the same day, Marlborough was dismissed as commander of the army. The Treaty was ratified and Great Britain's military involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession ended.

Death

At Christmas 1713, Anne was feverish, and lay unconscious for hours, which led to rumours of her impending death. She recovered, but was seriously ill again in March. On 27 July 1714, during Parliament's summer recess, she dismissed Harley as Treasurer. She was rendered unable to speak by a stroke on 30 July 1714, the anniversary of Gloucester's death, and on the advice of the privy council handed the treasurer's staff of office to Whig grandee Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury. She died of suppressed gout, ending in erysipelas, at about 7:30 a.m. on 1 August 1714. She was buried beside her husband in the Henry VII chapel on the South Aisle of Westminster Abbey on 23 August. Her body was so swollen and large that it had to be borne in a vast almost-square coffin.

Anne died shortly after the Electress Sophia (8 June, the same year); the Electress's son, George I, Elector of Hanover, inherited the British Crown. Pursuant to the Act of Settlement 1701, the crown was settled on George as Electress Sophia's heir, with the possible Catholic claimants, including Anne's half-brother James Francis Edward Stuart, ignored. However, the Elector of Hanover's accession was relatively stable: Jacobite risings in 1715 and 1719 both failed. Marlborough was re-instated.

Legacy

The reign of Queen Anne was marked by an increase in the influence of ministers and a decrease in the influence of the Crown. In 1708, Anne became the last British Sovereign to withhold the Royal Assent from a bill (in this case, a Scots militia bill). Preoccupied with her health (she may have suffered from porphyria), Anne allowed her ministers, most notably Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, as well as her favourites (Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and Abigail Masham) to dominate politics. The shift of power from the Crown to the ministry became even more apparent during the reign of George I, whose chief advisor, Sir Robert Walpole, is often described as the "first Prime Minister."

The political and diplomatic achievements of her governments and the stability of her reign, which was free from constitutional conflict between monarch and parliament, indicate that she chose ministers and exercised her prerogatives wisely. She attended more Cabinet meetings than any of her predecessors or successors. Assessments of Anne as fat, constantly pregnant, under the influence of favourites, and lacking political astuteness or interest may derive from chauvinist prejudices against women.

The age of Anne was one of artistic, literary, and scientific advancement. In architecture, Sir John Vanbrugh constructed elegant edifices such as Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. Writers such as Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift flourished. Although Anne and her reign have no direct bearing on the style personally, at the time Queen Anne style architecture became popular in the late 19th century, her name connoted a sense of Old World elegance and extravagant, ornate details. Her name also remains associated with the world's first substantial copyright law, known as the Statute of Anne (1709), which granted exclusive rights to authors rather than printers. During her reign the composer George Frideric Handel relocated to England where his music was popular.

In the United States, the North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession is known as Queen Anne's War.

The American city of Annapolis, Maryland, which originally bore several other names, was given its present name in 1694 by Sir Francis Nicholson, in honour of the then Princess Anne. Princess Anne County, Virginia, and Princess Anne Street in Fredericksburg, Virginia, were named for her before her accession to the throne.

Queen Anne's County, Maryland, was named for her during her reign in 1706. There is a statue of Queen Anne in front of the Queen Anne's County courthouse in Centreville, Maryland, which was dedicated in 1977. The dedication ceremony was attended by HRH The Princess Anne, daughter of Elizabeth II.

Upon its capture from the French in 1710, the Acadian capital of Port-Royal was renamed Annapolis Royal in honour of the Queen.

A statue of Anne stands outside the main entrance to St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

In popular culture

Anne was played by Margaret Tyzack in the 1969 BBC TV drama series ''The First Churchills'', which depicted Queen Anne's life from her childhood to her death, in the context of her friendship with Sarah and John Churchill. Elizabeth Spriggs portrayed her in the 2004 BBC drama documentary ''Wren: The Man Who Built Britain''. In the 1984 comedy ''Yellowbeard'' she was played by Peter Bull (in his last film role) as a fat, senile woman, dominated by Sarah Churchill.

Anne is a character in the novel ''The Man Who Laughs'' by Victor Hugo, and was portrayed on screen by Anna Kallina in the 1921 Austrian silent adaptation ''Das Grinsende Gesicht'' and by Josephine Crowell in the 1928 silent adaptation. She is also a character in the play ''Le Verre d'eau'' by Eugène Scribe; Gunnel Lindblom portrayed her in the 1960 Swedish TV adaptation ''Ett Glas vatten'', Liselotte Pulver in the 1960 West German film adaptation ''Das Glas Wasser'', Judit Halász in the 1977 Hungarian TV adaptation ''Sakk-matt'', and Natalya Belokhvostikova in the 1979 Soviet film adaptation ''Stakan vody'' (Стакан воды).

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Name	Queen Anne of Great Britain
Dipstyle	Her Majesty
Offstyle	Your Majesty
Altstyle	Madam }}

Titles and styles

6 February 1665 – 28 July 1683: ''Her Highness'' The Lady Anne 28 July 1683 – 8 March 1702: ''Her Royal Highness'' Princess Anne of Denmark

8 March 1702 – 1 August 1714: ''Her Majesty'' The Queen

The official style of Anne before 1707 was "Anne, by the Grace of God, Queen of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc." (The claim to France was only nominal, and had been asserted by every English King since Edward III, regardless of the amount of French territory actually controlled.) After the Union, her style was "Anne, by the Grace of God, Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc."

Arms

As Queen regnant, Anne's arms before the Union were the Stuart Royal arms, in use since 1603: ''Quarterly, I and IV Grandquarterly, Azure three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) and Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England); II Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland)''. In 1702 Anne announced that the Royal arms was to be shown with the motto ''Semper eadem'' or ''Always the same'', this was the same motto used by Queen Elizabeth I.

The Act of Union declared that: "the Ensigns Armorial of the said United Kingdom be such as Her Majesty shall think fit," In 1707 the Union was heraldically expressed by the impaling, or placing side-by-side in the same quarter, of the arms of England and Scotland, which had previously been in different quarters. The new arms were: ''Quarterly, I and IV Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or (for England) impaling Or a lion rampant within a tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland); II Azure three fleurs-de-lys Or (for France); III Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland)''.

{{Image gallery|width=200|height=200 |Coat of Arms of England (1702-1707).svg|See adjacent text|Coat of arms of Anne as Queen of England from 1702 to 1707 |Coat of Arms of Scotland (1660-1689).svg|See adjacent text|Coat of arms of Anne as Queen of Scotland from 1702 to 1707 |Coat_of_Arms_of_Great_Britain_(1707-1714).svg|See adjacent text|Coat of arms of Anne as Queen of Great Britain from 1707 to 1714 |Coat of Arms of Great Britain in Scotland (1707-1714).svg|See adjacent text|Coat of arms of Anne as Queen of Great Britain (Scotland), 1707–1714 }}

Ancestry

{{ahnentafel-compact5 |style=font-size: 90%; line-height: 110%; |border=1 |boxstyle=padding-top: 0; padding-bottom: 0; |boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc; |boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9; |boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc; |boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc; |boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe; |1= 1. Anne of Great Britain |2= 2. James II of England |3= 3. Anne Hyde |4= 4. Charles I of England |5= 5. Princess Henrietta Maria of France |6= 6. Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon |7= 7. Frances Aylesbury |8= 8. James I of England |9= 9. Princess Anne of Denmark |10= 10. Henry IV of France |11= 11. Marie de' Medici |12= 12. Henry Hyde |13= 13. Mary Langford |14= 14. Sir Thomas Aylesbury, 1st Baronet |15= 15. Anne Denman |16= 16. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley |17= 17. Mary, Queen of Scots |18= 18. Frederick II of Denmark |19= 19. Sofie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin |20= 20. Antoine of Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme |21= 21. Jeanne III of Navarre |22= 22. Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany |23= 23. Archduchess Johanna of Austria |24= 24. Lawrence Hyde |25= 25. Anne Sibell |26= 26. Edward Langford |27= 27. Mary St. Barbe |28= 28. William Aylesbury |29= 29. Anne Poole |30= 30. Francis Denman |31= 31. Anne Blount }}

Issue

!Name!!Birth!!Death
Mary	2 June 1685
Anne Sophia	12 May 1686
William, Duke of Gloucester	24 July 1689
Mary	14 October 1690
George	17 April 1692
Charles	15 September 1698

In addition, there were eight still-born children and four miscarriages.

All of Anne's children bore the titles of Prince(ss) of Denmark and Prince(ss) of Norway.

See also

List of things named after Queen Anne

Succession to the British Throne

Notes

References

Green, David (1970). ''Queen Anne''. London: Collins. ISBN 0-00-211693-6.

Waller, Maureen (2006). ''Sovereign Ladies: The Six Reigning Queens of England''. London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-6628-8.

Weir, Alison (1995) ''Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy, Revised Edition''. London: Random House. ISBN 0-7126-7448-9.

External links

Category:1665 births Category:1714 deaths Category:English monarchs Category:Scottish monarchs Category:Monarchs of Great Britain Category:Queens regnant in the British Isles Category:18th-century female rulers Category:House of Stuart Category:Protestant monarchs Category:Pretenders to the throne of the kingdom of France (Plantagenet) Category:Queens regnant of England Category:Queens regnant of Scotland Category:English princesses Category:Scottish princesses Category:Danish princesses Category:Norwegian princesses Category:Female heirs apparent Category:Lord High Admirals Category:People from Westminster Category:English people of French descent Category:English people of Italian descent Category:English people of Scottish descent Category:Infectious disease deaths in England Category:Burials at Westminster Abbey Category:Women in 18th-century warfare

af:Anna van Groot-Brittanje ang:Anne Cwēn ar:آن ملكة بريطانيا العظمى be:Ганна, каралева брытанская bs:Ana, kraljica Velike Britanije br:Anne Breizh-Veur bg:Анна (Великобритания) ca:Anna de la Gran Bretanya cs:Anna Stuartovna cy:Anne, brenhines Prydain Fawr da:Anne af England de:Anne (Großbritannien) et:Anne (Suurbritannia) el:Άννα της Μεγάλης Βρετανίας es:Ana de Gran Bretaña eo:Anna (Britio) eu:Ana Britainia Handikoa fa:آن بریتانیای کبیر fr:Anne de Grande-Bretagne ga:Áine na Breataine Móire gd:Anna, Ban-rìgh Shasainn, Alba is Èireann gl:Ana de Gran Bretaña ko:앤 (영국) hr:Ana, kraljica Velike Britanije it:Anna di Gran Bretagna he:אן, מלכת בריטניה ka:ანა (დიდი ბრიტანეთი) la:Anna (regina Britanniae) lv:Anna Stjuarta hu:Anna brit királynő arz:آن ملكة بريطانيا العظمى nl:Anna van Groot-Brittannië ja:アン (イギリス女王) no:Anne av Storbritannia nn:Anne av Storbritannia pl:Anna Stuart pt:Ana da Grã-Bretanha ro:Anna a Marii Britanii ru:Анна (королева Великобритании) sco:Anne o Great Breetain simple:Anne of Great Britain sk:Anna Stuartová sr:Ана од Велике Британије fi:Anna (Englanti) sv:Anna av Storbritannien th:สมเด็จพระราชินีนาถแอนน์แห่งบริเตนใหญ่ tr:Anne (Büyük Britanya) uk:Анна Стюарт vi:Anne của Anh zh:安妮 (大不列颠)