Spokane County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, its population was 539,339, and was estimated to be 555,947 in 2024, the second largest city in the state after Seattle. The county is named after the Spokane people.

Spokane County is part of the Spokane metropolitan area, which is also part of the greater Spokane–Coeur d'Alene combined statistical area that includes nearby Kootenai County, Idaho.

History

The first humans to arrive in what is now Spokane County arrived between 12,000 and 8,000 years ago and were hunter-gatherer societies who lived off the plentiful game in the area. Initially, the settlers hunted predominantly bison and antelope, but after the game migrated out of the region, the native people became dependent on gathering various roots, berries, and nuts, and harvesting fish. The Spokane tribe, after which the county is named, means "Children of the Sun" or "sun people" in Salishan Explorer-geographer David Thompson, working as head of the North West Company's Columbia Department, became the first European to explore what is now the Inland Northwest. After establishing the Kullyspell House and Saleesh House fur trading posts in what are now Idaho and Montana, Thompson then attempted to expand further west. He sent out two trappers, Jacques Raphael Finlay and Finan McDonald, to construct a fur-trading post on the Spokane River in Washington and trade with the local Indians. This post was established in 1810, at the confluence of the Little Spokane and Spokane Rivers, becoming the first enduring European settlement of significance in Washington. The territorial legislature designated the farm of Angus McLeod as the temporary county seat and appointed officials to several positions for Spokane County, but they never took office and did not organize a government. In late 1859, a group of settlers in the Bitterroot Valley petitioned to create their own county, which was not granted at that time; the territorial legislature reorganized Spokane County on January 17, 1860, with a seat on a land claim near Fort Colville.

The first county government met on May 8, 1860, and began conducting business. These areas became part of the new Idaho Territory, which was organized by the U.S. Congress on March 3, 1863, and reduced the size of Spokane County even further. On January 19, 1864, the county was annexed into neighboring Stevens County, which had been created a year earlier from the northern portions of Walla Walla County. The seat of Stevens County was Pinkney City (now Colville) until it was temporarily relocated to the town of Spokane Falls (now Spokane) in 1875.

Spokane County was re-established on October 30, 1879, from the portions of Stevens County south of the Columbia, Spokane, and Wenatchee rivers. The western portion of the county was used to create Lincoln County, which was established on November 23, 1883. The first post office in the county was located at Spokane Bridge.

The selection of a permanent county seat was to be decided in an election in November 1880 between the growing cities of Cheney and Spokane Falls, both candidates for a major Northern Pacific Railway hub. The unofficial returns showed a 14-vote margin in favor of Cheney, but the result was disputed by county officials from Spokane Falls based on "irregularities" in the ballots. The official result had a margin of two or three votes for Spokane Falls, but Cheney residents demanded a recount, which was granted by a court order that was ignored by county officials in Spokane Falls. On March 21, 1881, a group of armed Cheney residents forcibly took custody of the county auditor, recount ballots, and other county records during a nighttime raid. After declaring their own recount had been in favor of Cheney as county seat, the records and the county auditor were moved from Spokane Falls; other government officials also moved to Cheney after a court order upheld the Cheney recount. A new ballot question in 1886 resulted in Spokane becoming the permanent county seat. It is the 19th largest county in Washington by total area.

The lowest point in the county is the Spokane River behind Long Lake Dam (boundary of Stevens County) at above sea level. (Virtually no change in elevation occurs between the dam and the mouth of the Little Spokane River inside Riverside State Park.) The highest point in the county is the summit of Mount Spokane at per.

Spokane County has a complex geologic history and varied topography. To the west is the barren landscape of the Columbia Basin and to the east are the foothills of the Rockies—the Coeur d'Alene Mountains, which rise to the east in northern Idaho. Spokane County lies in a transition area between the eastern edge of the basaltic Channeled Scablands steppe plains to the west and the rugged, timbered Rocky Mountain foothills to the east. The area exhibits signs of the prehistoric geologic events that shaped the area and region such as the Missoula Floods, which ended 12,000 to 15,000 years ago. The geography to the southeast, such as the Saltese Flats and Saltese Uplands is characterized as a shrub–steppe landscape with grassy hills and ravines.

In ecology, as with the topography, the county is also in a transition area, roughly split between the Columbia Plateau ecoregion in the southwest portion, where it is at the eastern edge of the basaltic Channeled Scablands steppe plain and the Northern Rockies ecoregion in the northwest portion, which is the rugged and forested Selkirk Mountains.

Rivers and streams

  • Spokane River
  • Cable Creek
  • Latah Creek
  • Marshall Creek
  • Garden Springs Creek
  • Little Spokane River
  • Deep Creek
  • Coulee Creek
  • Saltese Creek

Lakes and reservoirs

  • Eloika Lake
  • Liberty Lake
  • Medical Lake
  • West Medical Lake
  • Newman Lake
  • Shelley Lake

Notable summits and peaks

  • Mount Spokane
  • Mount Kit Carson
  • Mica Peak
  • Krell Hill

Notable parks

  • Dishman Hills Natural Conservation Area
  • Riverside State Park
  • Riverfront Park
  • Manito Park
  • Mount Spokane State Park

National protected area

  • Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge

Major highways

  • 25px Interstate 90
  • 25px U.S. Route 2
  • 25px U.S. Route 195
  • 25px U.S. Route 395
  • 25px State Route 27
  • 25px State Route 206
  • 25px State Route 290
  • 25px State Route 291
  • 25px State Route 902
  • 25px State Route 904

Adjacent counties

  • Stevens County – northwest
  • Pend Oreille County – north
  • Bonner County, Idaho – northeast
  • Kootenai County, Idaho – east
  • Benewah County, Idaho – southeast
  • Whitman County – south
  • Lincoln County – west

Demographics