Port Townsend is a city on the Quimper Peninsula in Jefferson County, Washington, United States. The population was 10,148 at the 2020 United States Census.
It is the county chair and solitary incorporated city of Jefferson County. In adjunct to its natural scenery at the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula, the city is known for the many Victorian buildings enduring from its late 19th-century heyday, numerous annual cultural events, and as a maritime middle for independent boatbuilders and combined industries and crafts. The Port Townsend Historic District is a U.S. National Historic Landmark District. It is in addition to significantly drier than the surrounding region due to living thing in the rainshadow of the Olympic Mountains, receiving lonesome 19 inches or 480 millimeters of rain per year.

The recess was originally named “Port Townshend” by Captain George Vancouver in 1792, for his friend the Marquis of Townshend. It was unexpectedly recognized as a good safe harbor, although strong south winds and destitute holding ground often make small-craft anchorage problematic off the town’s waterfront.

The credited European-American concurrence of the city of the same name took place upon April 24, 1851. American Indian tribes located in what is now Jefferson County in the mid-19th century included the Chimakum (or Chemakum), Hoh (a action of the Quileute), Klallam (or Clallam), Quinault, and Twana (the Kilcid band — Anglicized as “Quilcene”).

Port Townsend is called the “City of Dreams” because of the in the future speculation that the city would be the largest harbor upon the west coast of the United States. Guarding the gate of Puget Sound, it would become known by its other nickname, the “Key City,” a title that remains to this day.