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Washington Counties

There are 39 counties in the state of Washington.

Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory and admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. The first counties were created from unorganized territory in 1845.

Thurston County, Washington

Thurston County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Olympia
Year Organized: 1852
Square Miles: 727

Court House:

2000 Lakeridge Drive, SW
County Courthouse
Olympia, WA 98502-6001

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Samuel Royal Thurston, Oregon Territory's first delegate to the United States Congress.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Thurston County was created out of Lewis County by the government of Oregon Territory on January 12, 1852. At that time, it covered all of the Puget Sound region and the Olympic Peninsula. On December 22 of the same year, Pierce, King, Island, and Jefferson Counties were split off from Thurston County

Thurston County is located in Western Washington, on the southern end of Puget Sound, often called the "South Sound." It is the eighth smallest county in the state, with a total land mass of 727 miles, but also the eighth most populous county, with a population of 207,355 counted in the 2000 United States Census. Thurston County is named after Samuel R. Thurston, in 1849 the first delegate to Congress from the new Oregon Territory, part of which later became Washington. In 1845 the county became the site of the first American settlement in the future state of Washington when Michael Simmons (1814-1867) settled near Tumwater Falls. In 1853 the town of Olympia was chosen as the territorial (later state) capital, but battles would rage over this choice for the next century. During the county's first century lumber and its byproducts rather than state government played the leading economic role. In 1954, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that state government offices must have their headquarters in Olympia, and soon state government dominated the county's economy, while its lumber industry faded to a fraction of its former glory. Thurston County's population boomed beginning in the early 1970s, transforming the towns of Olympia, Lacey, and Tumwater into a small metropolis of its own and attracting migration from the larger cities to the north of Tacoma and Seattle.
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Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 774 square miles (2,004 km²), of which, 727 square miles (1,883 km²) of it is land and 47 square miles (121 km²) of it (6.03%) is water.

Major watersheds: Black River, Budd/Deschutes, Chehalis River, Eld Inlet, Henderson Inlet, Nisqually River, Skookumchuck River, Totten Inlet & West Capitol Forest.

Neighboring Counties:

Pierce County, Washington - northeast
Lewis County, Washington - south
Grays Harbor County, Washington - west
Mason County, Washington - north/northwest

Cities and Towns:

- Bucoda	town	Incorporated Area
- Lacey	city	Incorporated Area
- Olympia (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Rainier	town	Incorporated Area
- Tenino	city	Incorporated Area
- Tumwater	city	Incorporated Area
- Yelm	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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