Sammamish (/səˈmæmɪʃ/ sə-MAM-ish) is a city in King County, Washington, United States.

[5] Located on a plateau, the city is bordered by Lake Sammamish to the west and the Snoqualmie Valley to the east.

The plateau remained a mostly rural area until suburban homes, shopping centers, and schools were built in the 1970s and 1980s.

However, from approximately 1900 through the Great Depression, there was a tiny hamlet in Inglewood community (at today's Weber Point) of approximately 50 people who called the area "Sammamish", and later, in the 1960s, there was a suburban community and school at what is now Sunny Hills.

A renewed movement to become a city, born of frustration with development policies set by the county government, met with voter approval in 1998.

[10] The city government approved plans in 2008 to develop a denser town center with mixed use zoning and taller buildings.

The first two residential buildings and several commercial developments were completed over the following decade, but plans for the largest phase stalled into the 2020s.

[3] The city is situated on the shores and hilly terrain east of Lake Sammamish.

It is bordered to the south by Issaquah, to the northwest by Redmond, and to the west across Lake Sammamish by Bellevue.

[14] Winters are cool and wet; the wettest months are November, December, and January, when the area is directly affected by the Aleutian Low, and summers are warm and dry; the driest months are July and August.

Snowfall is rare; subfreezing temperatures usually occur with a high-pressure system, which brings clear skies.

[15] Sammamish is predicted to warm by 3-12 F (2-7 C) before 2100 regardless of future emissions, and around 2.5 F during the next few decades due to climate change.

Warming by any significant amount will cause Sammamish to have reduced snowfall, hotter and drier summers, and more warm-season extreme weather events.

[17] Sammamish's climate change action plan includes, but is not limited to, tree replacement, voluntary planting, protecting threatened species, protecting native fish such as Chinook salmon and the streams, lakes and ponds they live in, floodplain management, wetland protection, emission reduction, light/noise pollution reduction, toxin (pesticide) control, and many other measures.

[19] The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the median household income in Sammamish was $239,000 in 2022, placing it first among U.S. cities with a population greater than 65,000.

Sammamish contracts with the King County Sheriff's Office for police services.

They connect to State Route 202 to the north, providing access to Redmond, and Interstate 90 to the south in Issaquah.

A regional freeway, Interstate 605, has been proposed several times since the 1960s to run through Sammamish, but has not been built.

Metro began running dial-a-ride buses to the Sammamish Plateau in 1993,[35] and it later extended commuter services in the early 2000s.

[36] The King County government completed construction of an 11-mile (18 km) bike trail on the east side of Lake Sammamish in 2023.