TheEastside of theKing County, Washington area in the United States is a collective term for thesuburbs ofSeattle located on the east side ofLake Washington.
The most common definitions of the Eastside include the cities ofBellevue,Kirkland,Redmond,Sammamish,Issaquah,Newcastle, andMercer Island.[1][2][3]
The towns west of Bellevue, collectively known as theGold Coast, are usually considered part of the Eastside. These includeBeaux Arts Village,Clyde Hill,Hunts Point,Medina, andYarrow Point.
The Northshore cities ofKenmore,Bothell, andWoodinville may be considered part of the Eastside, as each city contains portions that are east of the lake and south of its northernmost tip. Similarly, on the southeast tip of Lake Washington,Renton may also be included.[4]
The most expansive definitions of the Eastside can include cities in theSnoqualmie Valley, includingDuvall,Carnation,Fall City,Snoqualmie, andNorth Bend.
In politics, the area is sometimes referred to as the "suburban crescent".[5]
Several Indigenous peoples have lived on the Eastside for thousands of years prior to American colonization. The various subgroups of the Hachuamish, as well as theSammamish, had many villages along the eastern coast of Lake Washington and theSammamish River.[6] Although they were more contained to the southernmost reaches of the Eastside, the modern-day site ofRenton was the center ofDuwamish society.[7] Farther out in the Snoqualmie Valley, theSnoqualmie were historically one of the most populous tribes in the Puget Sound region.[8]
The cities on the Eastside mostly began as centers of logging or mining in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Once logged, the land was eventually cleared (primarily by Japanese immigrant labor) to support farming.[9] In the years prior to World War II they became centers of dairy and berry farming.
During the post-war boom, they becamebedroom communities for Seattle. This was made possible by the 1940 construction of theLacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge across Lake Washington, as well as the later construction of theEvergreen Point Floating Bridge in 1963; additional traffic later led to the construction of an additional bridge paralleling the Murrow bridge,Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, as well as thereplacement of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. Currently, the area is growing severaledge cities.
Bellevue is the largest city on the Eastside and fifth largest in the state. A major technology center, the Eastside is home to many large high-tech companies, mainly in thesoftware andwireless industries, includingMicrosoft,T-Mobile US,Nintendo of America,AT&T Mobility (formerly Cingular), the formerWestern Wireless (now part ofVerizon Wireless),Vulcan Ventures,180 Solutions andInfoSpace. Companies likePaccar,Puget Sound Energy,Symetra Insurance,Boeing,Verizon Wireless,Google,Amazon,Yahoo,Walt Disney, andFox Sports also have national, major divisional or regional offices in the Eastside. The Eastside is also a hub for biotech and medical companies includingAmgen,Icos, andMerck. Many local magnates, includingBill Gates,Steve Ballmer,John Stanton, andCraig McCaw, live in the Eastside's cities. The Eastside is also home to many video game and interactive media companies. These includeBungie,Valve,ArenaNet,Sucker Punch,Monolith Productions,Sony Online Entertainment,Warner Brothers Entertainment,Microsoft Game Studios,Epic Games,Unity Technologies andDigiPen Institute of Technology.
Kirkland hosts the annualJunior League Softball World Series. Kirkland Signature is also theown brand ofCostco, which founded its first warehouse in Seattle (#1), and operates from its corporate headquarters in the Eastside city ofIssaquah.
For the purposes of population estimates, Eastside includes Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Sammamish, Issaquah, Newcastle, Mercer Island, Woodinville, Kenmore, and Bothell.
| City | 2020[10] | 2010[10] | 2000 | 1990 | 1980 | 1970 | 1960 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bellevue | 151,854 | 122,363 | 109,569 | 86,874 | 73,903 | 61,196 | 12,809 |
| Kirkland | 92,175 | 48,787 | 45,054 | 40,052 | 18,785 | 14,970 | 6,025 |
| Redmond | 73,256 | 54,144 | 45,256 | 35,800 | 23,318 | 11,020 | 1,426 |
| Sammamish | 67,455 | 45,780 | 34,104 | - | - | - | - |
| Bothell | 48,161 | 33,505 | 30,150 | 12,345 | 7,943 | 5,420 | 2,237 |
| Issaquah | 40,051 | 30,434 | 11,212 | 7,786 | 5,536 | 4,313 | 1,870 |
| Mercer Island | 25,748 | 22,699 | 22,036 | 20,816 | 21,522 | 19,047 | – |
| Kenmore | 23,914 | 20,460 | 18,678 | 8,917 | 7,281 | – | – |
| Woodinville | 13,069 | 10,938 | 9,194 | – | – | – | – |
| Newcastle | 13,017 | 10,380 | 7,737 | 14,736 | 12,245 | – | - |
| Eastside altogether | 548,700 | 399,490 | 332,990 | 227,326 | 170,533 | 115,966 | 24,367 |
| King County | 2,269,675 | 1,931,249 | 1,737,034 | 1,507,319 | 1,269,749 | 1,156,633 | 935,014 |
| Eastside as percent of King county | 24.18% | 20.69% | 19.17% | 15.08% | 13.43% | 10.03% | 2.61% |
| Seattle | 737,015 | 608,660 | 563,374 | 516,259 | 493,846 | 530,831 | 557,087 |
| Seattle as percent of King county | 32.47% | 31.52% | 32.43% | 34.25% | 38.89% | 45.89% | 59.58% |
There are public and private airfields on the Eastside. Major facilities include:
There is also a landing zone forparagliding at the base of Tiger Mountain.[11]
TheWoodinville Subdivision is a rail line built in the late 19th century. In 2008, theWilburton Tunnel was eliminated, severing the line. The right-of-way was purchased the same year by thePort of Seattle.[12] Eastside cities and King County purchased portions of the Port property for conversion to arail trail called theEastside Rail Corridor.[13]
The Eastside is connected to Seattle by theEvergreen Point Floating Bridge from Medina (State Route 520) and theLacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge andThird Lake Washington Bridge from Bellevue via Mercer Island (Interstate 90). It is also served byInterstate 405, a loop route ofInterstate 5 that runs to the east of Lake Washington fromTukwila toLynnwood.