Olympia

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Legislative Building, Olympia, Washington

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Olympia

Washington, United States

Also known as: Smithfield

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Olympia, city, capital of Washington, U.S., seat (1852) of Thurston county, on Budd Inlet and Capitol Lake (at the south end of Puget Sound), at the mouth of the Deschutes River, 29 miles (47 km) southwest of Tacoma. Laid out in 1851 as Smithfield, it became the site of a U.S. customs house and was renamed for the nearby Olympic Mountains. Chosen as the territorial capital in 1853, Olympia developed port facilities and a lumber-based economy, augmented by oyster farming, dairying, brewing, and other industries. Its harbour serves as the base for a large merchant reserve fleet and contains a ...(100 of 233 words)

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