Community action/Seattle

In the Seattle-King County area, an estimated 11,751 people were experiencing homelessness in 2020. Of those, the number of unsheltered individuals was 5,578, the number in emergency shelters was 4,085, and the number in transitional housing was 2,088.

A 2020 survey indicated that, by race, 48% of individuals experiencing homelessness were white, 25% were African American, 15% were Native American, 6% were multiracial, 2% were Asian, while Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander groups accounted for 4%. According to a 2019 survey, 84% of homeless people in Seattle/King County lived in Seattle/King County prior to losing their housing, 11% lived in another county in Washington, and 5% lived outside of the state. Homelessness in Seattle has been described as a crisis. It has been proposed that Seattle needs more permanent supportive housing to address the issue.

A 2022 study found that differences in per capita homelessness rates across the country are not due to mental illness, drug addiction, or poverty, but to differences in the cost of housing, with West Coast cities like Seattle having homelessness rates five times that of areas with much lower housing costs like Arkansas, West Virginia, Detroit, and Chicago even though the latter locations have high burdens of opioid addiction and poverty.

Seattle's mild, temperate marine climate allows year-round outdoor recreation, including walking, cycling, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, motorboating, sailing, team sports, and swimming. The city parks system encompasses 485 parks, shorelines, and preserved spaces that total 6,500 acres (2,600 ha)—12 percent of the land area of Seattle. These city-owned facilities include 25 miles (40 km) of boulevards and 120 miles (190 km) of walking and hiking trails, athletic fields, swimming pools, community centers, bathhouses, and performance spaces. The Trust for Public Land ranked Seattle eighth in the United States among municipal parks systems in 2023 and estimates that 99 percent of residents live within a 1⁄2-mile (0.8 km) of a park.

The largest park in the city is Discovery Park, which includes 534 acres (2.16 km²) of forestland and saltwater beaches along the bluffs in Magnolia. Among the most popular Seattle parks are Green Lake, which is ringed by a walking trail; Alki Beach Park on the southwest side of Elliott Bay; Myrtle Edwards Park near the downtown waterfront; Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill; and Seward Park on Lake Washington. Several city parks include panoramic views of the Seattle skyline, including Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill and Gas Works Park in Wallingford, which features the preserved superstructure of a coal gasification plant closed in 1956.

Seattle has a network of recreational and commuting trails for cyclists and pedestrians, mainly repurposed from disused railroads or built alongside regional highways. The Burke–Gilman Trail, which travels for 27 miles (43 km) along the Ship Canal and Lake Washington between Ballard and Bothell, first opened in 1978 on a former railroad. The Mountains to Sound Trail connects the Interstate 90 corridor, including the north side of the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, and is planned to be extended to Snoqualmie. Other non-motorized paths include the Overlook Walk, which opened in 2024 to connect Pike Place Market to the downtown waterfront via a set of overpasses that integrate with an expansion of the Seattle Aquarium. Also popular among Seattle residents are hikes and skiing in the nearby Cascade or Olympic Mountains and kayaking and sailing in the region's waterways.

Golden Gardens Park is a public park in Ballard, a neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The park includes wetlands, beaches, hiking trails, and picnic and playground areas. The park's bathhouse was designated a historic landmark by the City of Seattle in 2005.

Seattle ( see-AT-əl) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America. It is the 18th-most populous city in the United States with a population of 784,777 in 2025, while the Seattle metropolitan area at over 4.15 million residents is the 15th-most populous metropolitan area in the nation. The city is the county seat of King County, the most populous county in Washington. Seattle's growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 made it one of the country's fastest-growing large cities.

Seattle is situated on an isthmus between Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Washington. It is the northernmost major city in the United States, located about 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canadian border. A gateway for trade with the Asia-Pacific region, the Port of Seattle is the fourth-largest port in North America in terms of container handling as of 2021.