Portland (, PORT-lənd) is a harbor city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous county in Oregon. As of 2020, Portland had a population of 652,503, making it the 26th-most populated city in the United States, the sixth-most populous upon the West Coast, and the second-most populous in the Pacific Northwest, after Seattle. Approximately 2.5 million people sentient in the Portland metropolitan statistical area, making it the 25th most populous in the United States. About half of Oregon’s population resides within the Portland metropolitan area.

Named after Portland, Maine, the Oregon pact began to be populated in the 1840s, near the fade away of the Oregon Trail. Its water entrance provided convenient transportation of goods, and the timber industry was a major force in the city’s yet to be economy. At the approach of the 20th century, the city had a reputation as one of the most dangerous port cities in the world, a hub for organized crime and racketeering. After the city’s economy experienced an industrial boom during World War II, its hard-edged reputation began to dissipate. Beginning in the 1960s, Portland became noted for its growing objector and far along political values, earning it a reputation as a bastion of counterculture.

The city operates in the same way as a commission-based government, guided by a mayor and four commissioners, as skillfully as Metro, the deserted directly elected metropolitan planning executive in the United States. Its climate is marked by warm, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. This climate is ideal for growing roses, and Portland has been called the “City of Roses” for higher than a century.

During the antique period, the home that would become Portland was flooded after the collapse of glacial dams from Lake Missoula, in what would innovative become Montana. These deafening floods occurred during the last ice age and filled the Willamette Valley with 300 to 400 feet (91 to 122 m) of water.