Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 55,605 at the 2020 census, while the Olympia metropolitan statistical area has an estimated 300,000 residents. Olympia is the county seat of Thurston County and anchors the South Puget Sound region of western Washington, 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Seattle.
The Squaxin and other Coast Salish peoples inhabited the southern Puget Sound region prior to the arrival of European and American settlers in the 19th century. The Treaty of Medicine Creek was signed in 1854 and followed by the Treaty of Olympia in 1856; these two treaties forced the Squaxin to relocate to an Indian reservation. Olympia was declared the capital of the Washington Territory in 1853 and incorporated as a town on January 28, 1859. It became a city in 1881.
Aside from its role in the state government, Olympia is also recognized as a countercultural hub in the Pacific Northwest. The city's music scene gained prominence in the 1990s for its role in the emergence of punk rock movements such as riot grrrl and grunge. The Olympia area is also home to The Evergreen State College, a public liberal arts institution known for its non-traditional curriculum. Intercity Transit provides fare-free bus service throughout the Olympia area, which has high per-capita use of public transportation relative to other cities of its size.
History
For thousands of years, the site of Olympia has been home to the Lushootseed-speaking people known as the Stechass (Lushootseed: st̕əč̓asəbš), who are today part of the Squaxin Island Tribe. Other Native Americans regularly visited the head of Budd Inlet, including the other ancestral tribes of the Squaxin, as well as the Nisqually, Puyallup, Chehalis, Suquamish, and Duwamish. The peninsula on which Olympia was built was named bəsčətxʷəd, meaning 'black bear place,' and a Stechass village was located at the site of Olympia. The modern city of Olympia has come to be called st̕č̓as in the Lushootseed language; originally the name referred to all Budd Inlet.
The first recorded Europeans came to Olympia in 1792. Peter Puget and a crew from the British Vancouver Expedition are said to have explored the site, but neither recorded any encounters with the resident Indigenous population. In 1846, Edmund Sylvester and Levi Lathrop Smith jointly claimed the land that is now downtown Olympia. In 1851, the U.S. Congress established the Customs District of Puget Sound for Washington Territory and Olympia became the home of the customs house. Its population steadily expanded from Oregon Trail immigrants. In 1850, the town settled on the name Olympia, at local resident Colonel Isaac N. Ebey's suggestion, because of its view of the Olympic Mountains to the northwest. The area began to be served by a small fleet of steamboats known as the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet. It was declared the capital of the Washington Territories by Governor Isaac I. Stevens in November 1853. Olympia was the first and only capital of Washington in its history as both a territory and a state.
Over two days, December 24–26, 1854, Governor Stevens negotiated the Treaty of Medicine Creek with the representatives of the Nisqually, Puyallup, Squawksin, Stechass, Noo-Seh-Chatl, Squi-Aitl, T'Peeksin, Sahewamish, and S'Hotl-Ma-Mish tribes. Stevens's treaty included the preservation of Indigenous fishing, hunting, gathering and other rights. It also included a section which, at least as interpreted by United States officials, required the Native American signatories to move to one of three reservations. Doing so would effectively force the Nisqually people to cede their prime farming and living space. An additional agreement between the state, city, and indigenous groups, known as the Treaty of Olympia or as the Quinault Treaty, was completed during 1855. One of the leaders of the Nisqually, Chief Leschi, outraged, refused to give up ownership of this land and instead fought for his people's right to their territory, sparking the beginning of the Puget Sound War. The war ended with Leschi's capture in 1856; he was executed two years later.
Olympia was incorporated as a fourth-class municipality, commonly referred to as a town, on January 28, 1859, and as a charter city on December 1, 1881.
The 1949 Olympia earthquake damaged many historic buildings beyond repair, and they were demolished. Parts of the city also suffered damage from earthquakes in 1965 and 2001.
Interstate 5 was built through the south side of the city in the late 1950s as a replacement for earlier highways that traveled through downtown Olympia. The freeway was originally planned to cut through the city, but was moved farther out to save costs. It opened to traffic on December 12, 1958, and was later expanded in 1991.
On December 22, 1977, the City of Olympia was reclassified as a non-charter code city.
Geography
Olympia is located in Thurston County at the southern end of Puget Sound on Budd Inlet, where the Deschutes River estuary enters the Sound. The river was dammed in 1951 to create Capitol Lake; in late 2022 the state government approved the dam's removal to restore the estuary at an unspecified date.
The city is 47 miles (76 km) southwest of Seattle, the most populous city in Washington, and 100 miles (160 km) north of Portland, Oregon. The cities of Lacey and Tumwater border Olympia.
As of 2024, Olympia had an area of 20.08 square miles (52.01 km2), of which 18.22 sq mi (47.19 km2) was land and 1.86 sq mi (4.82 km2) was water.
The area is located near the southern limit of the Fraser Glaciation and the underlying sediments consist largely of Vashon-age till and outwash deposited at that time; the area also includes former lakebeds and alluvial deposits associated with proglacial lakes that existed in the area near the end of Vashon-stage glaciation. Residual glacial topography in the area includes drumlins, subglacial channels, and kettle lakes. Much of downtown Olympia sits on reclaimed land. Tidewater areas were filled as early as the 1870s, but the major change occurred in 1910–11 with placement of the Carlyon Fill (named for mayor Phillip H. Carlyon). Over two million cubic yards (1,500,000 m3) of sediment were dredged, thereby creating a deep-water port at Olympia; the dredged material was used to fill tidelands, creating almost 30 blocks of what is now downtown.
Climate
Olympia has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csb). The local microclimate has dry summers in July and mildly humid summers in early June and late August, with cool July and August overnight lows. It is part of USDA Hardiness zone 8a, with isolated pockets around Puget Sound in zone 8b. Most of western Washington's weather is brought in by weather systems that form near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. It contains cold moist air, which brings western Washington cold rain, cloudiness, and fog. November through January are Olympia's rainiest months. City streets, creeks, and rivers can flood from November to February. The monthly mean temperature ranges from 38.4 °F (3.6 °C) in December to 64.1 °F (17.8 °C) in August. Seasonal snowfall for 1981–2010 averaged 10.8 inches (27.4 cm) but has historically ranged from trace amounts in 1991–92 to 81.5 in (207 cm) in 1968–69.
Olympia averages 50 inches (1,270 mm) of precipitation annually and has a year-round average of 75% cloud cover. Annual precipitation has ranged from 29.92 in (760 mm) in 1952 to 66.71 in (1,694 mm) in 1950; for water year (October 1 – September 30) precipitation, the range is 32.71 in (831 mm) in 2000–01 to 72.57 in (1,843 mm) in 1998–99. With a period of record dating back to 1948, extreme temperatures have ranged from −8 °F (−22 °C) on January 1, 1979, up to 110 °F (43 °C), on June 28, 2021; the record cold daily maximum is 18 °F (−8 °C) on January 31, 1950, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum is 69 °F (21 °C) on July 22, 2006. Between 1991 and 2020 the mean coldest daily maximum was right on the freezing point at 32 °F (0 °C) and the warmest night of the year averaged a very mild 60 °F (16 °C).
On average, 6.3 days annually reach 90 °F (32 °C), 1.8 days stay at or below freezing all day, and 78 nights reach the freezing mark. The average window for freezing temperatures is October 8 through May 3, allowing a growing season of 157 days, nearly 100 days shorter than in Seattle.
Artesian water
Olympia was historically dependent on artesian waters, including springs that supplied early settlers in Swantown and Tumwater. The artesian spring at Fourth Avenue and Main Street (now called Capitol Way) was the main community well where settlers, as well as the local Stechass and visiting Native Americans, gathered to socialize. Settler accounts recall paying Native Americans to collect water here. The artesian well at Artesian Commons park, a former parking lot, is active. Another still flows at the corner of Olympia Avenue and Washington Street. A small park was constructed around another spring in the Bigelow Neighborhood. The northeast end of Capitol Lake was the location of an artesian well until the construction of a new park that included changes to the shoreline. McAllister Springs, Olympia's main water source, is fed by artesian wells, and the former Olympia Brewery is supplied by 26 artesian wells.
Efforts to protect and preserve the free-flowing artesian well on 4th Avenue in downtown Olympia began in 1991 with support from a local coffee roaster. Donations from the public were used to form "Friends of the Artesians", a group that researched the wells, maintained them, and tested their quality. They were later replaced by the non-profit organization H2Olympia in 2009. In 2011, the city of Olympia committed $50,000 toward improvements of an artesian well in a parking lot that the city purchased the same year. Renovations at the well were completed in late 2011, including surface improvements, solar lighting, and a raised area to fill bottles. In spring 2012, sea-themed mosaic artwork created by community members was installed at the site of the well.
Demographics
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Olympia had a population of 55,605. The median age was 39.0 years. 19.4% of residents were under the age of 18 and 18.3% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 90.6 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 86.1 males age 18 and over.
The population density was 2,825 inhabitants per square mile (1,090.7/km2), and there were 25,642 housing units at an average density of 1,303 units per square mile (503 units/km2). Of these, 4.9% were vacant, the homeowner vacancy rate was 0.8%, and the rental vacancy rate was 4.2%.
There were 24,393 households in Olympia, of which 25.3% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 36.7% were married-couple households, 20.4% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 33.7% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 35.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
100.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.0% lived in rural areas.
2010 census
As of the 2010 census, there were 46,478 people, 20,761 households, and 10,672 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,608.2 inhabitants per square mile (1,007.0/km2). There were 22,086 housing units at an average density of 1,239.4 units per square mile (478.5 units/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 83.7% White, 2.0% African American, 1.1% Native American, 6.0% Asian, 0.4% Pacific Islander, 1.8% from other races, and 5.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.3% of the population.
There were 20,761 households, of which 25.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.2% were married couples living together, 11.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 3.9% had a male householder with no wife present, and 48.6% were other families. 36.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.18 and the average family size was 2.83.
The median age in the city was 38 years. 19.5% of residents were under the age of 18; 11.2% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 28.5% were from 25 to 44; 26.7% were from 45 to 64; and 13.9% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.3% male and 52.7% female.
Government
The City of Olympia operates as a Council–manager government, with a mayor and 6 elected council members. The council appoints a city manager to operate the City and direct employees. As of the fiscal year 2023, the city had a general fund budget of $114 million and a full-time staff of 600.
Sanctuary city
In February 2025, the Olympia city council passed a resolution declaring the city a sanctuary city for LGBTQ+ people, guaranteeing municipal-level protections on top of existing state laws enshrining LGBT rights.
Economy
As of December 2024, the unemployment rate was 4.7% and the median household income was $76,930, a 45% increase from 2015.