Vancouver (/vænˈkuːvər/ ⓘ van-KOO-vər) is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington, located in Clark County.

Originally established in 1825 around Fort Vancouver, a fur-trading outpost, the city is located on the Washington–Oregon border along the Columbia River, directly north of Portland.

[14] The Vancouver area was inhabited by several Native American tribes, most recently the Chinook and Klickitat nations, with permanent settlements of timber longhouses.

[16][17] First known European contact was made by William Robert Broughton in 1792,[18][19] with approximately half of the indigenous population killed by smallpox before the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in the area in 1806.

[15] Within another fifty years, other diseases such as measles, malaria and influenza had reduced the Chinookan population from an estimated 80,000 "to a few dozen refugees, landless, slaveless and swindled out of a treaty".

The first permanent European settlement did not occur until 1824, when Fort Vancouver was established as a fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company.

[23][24][25] The neighborhood of Sifton was the terminus of an early electric trolley operated by the Northcoast Power Company that also served nearby Orchards from 1910 until 1926.

An Alcoa aluminum plant opened on September 2, 1940, using inexpensive power from the nearby New Deal hydropower turbines at Bonneville Dam.

This influx of shipyard workers boosted the population from 18,000 to over 80,000 in just a few months, leading to the creation of the Vancouver Housing Authority and six new residential developments: Fruit Valley, Fourth Plain Village, Bagley Downs, Ogden Meadows, Burton Homes and McLoughlin Heights.

If county leaders had approved another major annexation plan in 2006, Vancouver would have surpassed Tacoma and Spokane to become the state's second-largest city.

Chkalov was originally scheduled to land at an airstrip on Swan Island in nearby Portland, Oregon, but was redirected at the last minute to Vancouver's Pearson Airfield.

Unsheltered by the Willamette Valley, Vancouver has historically seen colder temperatures, including "silver thaw" storms where freezing rain cakes limbs and power lines.

Rainfall occurs frequently throughout the fall, winter, and spring, but ceases around the middle of June, with dry and warm weather lasting through September.

The 1948 Columbia River flood almost topped the Interstate Bridge's support piers and completely destroyed nearby Vanport, Oregon.

An EF1 tornado struck on January 10, 2008, just after noon, causing moderate damage along a two-mile (3.2 km) path from Vancouver Lake to the unincorporated Hazel Dell area.

Vancouver residents "shop at their own risk" when attempting to avoid the sales tax in Washington, although the rule is rarely, if ever, enforced[citation needed] except for purchases requiring registration, such as motor vehicles.

Moving from a salmon- and trade-based indigenous economy by the Chinook people, the Hudson's Bay Company pioneered extractive industries such as the fur trade and timber.

Largely bypassed by the railroad in the 1880s, when the Oregon Steam Navigation company would ferry trains across the river downstream from St. Helens, Oregon to Kalama, Washington, early downtown development was focused around Washington Street (where ferries arrived), lumber and Vancouver Barracks activities such as a large spruce mill for manufacturing airplanes.

Vancouver contains the corporate headquarters for Nautilus, Inc., ZoomInfo, Papa Murphy's Pizza and The Holland (parent company of the Burgerville restaurant chain).

[citation needed] The project was planned for 3,300 residential units, and roughly 1 million square feet (93,000 m2) of office and retail space.

[49] Around 15,000 people were in attendance for the official grand opening, in 2018, of the project and associated public space including Grant Street Pier, a cable-stayed viewing deck that extends out over the Columbia River.

It was named for J.P. Kiggins, an entrepreneur and politician who cut a swath through town in the early 20th century, serving as Vancouver's mayor for 15 non-consecutive years between 1908 and 1935.

The display routinely ran to 45 minutes, attracted up to 60,000 visitors and was broadcast on area television, one of the largest west of the Mississippi River.

Due to the death of key organizer "Mister Fireworks" Jim Larson and economic conditions during the Great Recession, the show was not held in 2009.

[62] 4 Days of Aloha, also known as the Hawaiian Festival, takes place in late July in Esther Short Park, Clark College, and Fort Vancouver.

Vancouver Public Schools' elementary schools include Sarah J. Anderson, Chinook, Eisenhower, Felida, Ben Franklin, Fruit Valley Community Learning Center, Harney, Hazel Dell, Hough, Martin Luther King, Lake Shore, Lincoln, Marshall, Minnehaha, Peter S. Ogden, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sacajawea, Salmon Creek, Truman, Walnut Grove, and Washington.

Evergreen School District's 21 elementary schools are: Burton, Burnt Bridge Creek, Columbia Valley, Crestline, Ellsworth, Emerald, Endeavour, Fircrest, Fisher's Landing, Harmony, Hearthwood, Illahee, Image, Marrion, Mill Plain, Orchards, Pioneer, Riverview, Sifton, Silver Star, Sunset, and York.

A third state highway, SR 501, starts at I-5 and heads west through downtown and continues along a path that runs between the Columbia River and Vancouver Lake.

[69] Opposition to paying for light rail was strong at that time, but slowly declined over the following several years, eventually leading Vancouver officials to begin discussing the idea again.

This extension of the MAX system opened in 2004 as the Yellow Line,[72] running as far north as the Portland Expo Center, approximately 1 mile (2 km) south of downtown Vancouver.