page_title: Puget Sound region
section_title: Political geography
hierarchical_section_title: Puget Sound region / Political geography
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Puget Sound from the Seattle Space Needle. On the horizon, Gold Mountain in Kitsap County is near center of image, w:Olympic Mountains to the right.
context_page_description: The Puget Sound region is a coastal area of the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. state of Washington, including Puget Sound, the Puget Sound lowlands, and the surrounding region roughly west of the Cascade Range and east of the Olympic Mountains. It is characterized by a complex array of saltwater bays, islands, and peninsulas carved out by prehistoric glaciers.
  Poet Robert Sund called the Puget Sound region "Ish River country", owing to its numerous rivers with names ending in "ish", such as the Duwamish, Samish, Sammamish, Skokomish, Skykomish, Snohomish, and the Stillaguamish. The ish ending is from Salishan languages and means "people of".
context_section_description: The urban region designated the Puget Sound Region is centered on Seattle and consists of nine counties, two urban center cities and four satellite cities making up what has been dubbed "Pugetopolis." Both urban core cities have large industrial areas and seaports plus a high-rise central business district. The satellite cities are primarily suburban, featuring a small downtown core and a small industrial area or port. The suburbs consist mostly of residences, strip malls, and shopping centers. The region is also home to numerous ports. The two largest and busiest are the Port of Seattle and Port of Tacoma, which, if combined, comprise the third largest container port in North America after Los Angeles/Long Beach and New York/New Jersey.
  The United States Census Bureau defines the Puget Sound region as the Seattle–Tacoma–Olympia Combined Statistical Area. This includes the Seattle metropolitan area, made up of the following counties (see Fig. STB):
  Seattle–Bellevue–Everett metropolitan division
  King County: Seattle and its immediate vicinity
  Snohomish County: north of Seattle
  Tacoma metropolitan division
  Pierce County: south of Seattle
  Based on commuting patterns, the adjacent metropolitan areas of Olympia, Bremerton, and Mount Vernon, along with a few smaller satellite urban areas, are grouped together in the CSA. The population of this wider region is 4,269,349—almost two-thirds of Washington's population—as of 2012. The Seattle CSA is the 12th largest CSA, and the 13th largest primary census statistical area in the country.  The additional metropolitan and micropolitan areas included are:
  Bremerton–Silverdale metropolitan area
  Kitsap County: west of Seattle, separated from the city by Puget Sound; connected to Seattle by ferry and to Tacoma by the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
  Olympia metropolitan area
  Thurston County: southwest of Seattle, at the South Puget Sound
  Mount Vernon–Anacortes metropolitan area
  Skagit County
  Oak Harbor micropolitan area
  Island County: northwest of Everett, encompassing Whidbey and Camano Islands in Puget Sound
  Shelton micropolitan area
  Mason County: west of Tacoma and northwest of Olympia
  A state-run ferry system, Washington State Ferries, connects the larger islands to the Washington mainland, as well as both sides of the sound, allowing cars and people to move about the greater Puget Sound region.
caption: View of Puget Sound from the Space Needle
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