Tacoma ( tə-KOH-mə) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington’s Puget Sound, 32 miles (51 km) southwest of Seattle, 31 miles (50 km) northeast of the allow in capital, Olympia, and 58 miles (93 km) northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The city’s population was 219,346 at the time of the 2020 census. Tacoma is the second-largest city in the Puget Sound area and the third-largest in the state. Tacoma furthermore serves as the middle of business upheaval for the South Sound region, which has a population of virtually 1 million.

Tacoma adopted its herald after the approachable Mount Rainier, called təˡqʷuʔbəʔ in the Puget Sound Salish dialect. It is locally known as the “City of Destiny” because the area was prearranged to be the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the late 19th century. The decision of the railroad was influenced by Tacoma’s adjacent to deep-water harbor, Commencement Bay. By connecting the bay as soon as the railroad, Tacoma’s wise saying became “When rails meet sails”. Commencement Bay serves the Port of Tacoma, a center of international trade on the Pacific Coast and Washington’s largest port. The city gained notoriety in 1940 for the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which earned the nickname “Galloping Gertie” due to the vertical doings of the deck during windy conditions.

Like most industrial cities, Tacoma suffered a prolonged decline in the mid-20th century appropriately of suburbanization and divestment. Since the 1990s, downtown Tacoma has experienced a grow old of revitalization. Developments in the downtown supplement the University of Washington Tacoma; the T Line (formerly Tacoma Link), the first open-minded electric open rail facilitate in the state; the state’s highest density of art and history museums; and a restored urban waterfront, the Thea Foss Waterway.

The Place was inhabited for thousands of years by American Indians, most recently the Puyallup people, who lived in settlements upon the delta.