Puget Sound

inlet, United States

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Last Updated: Jul 5, 2025 • Article History

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Puget Sound, deep inlet of the eastern North Pacific Ocean indenting northwestern Washington, U.S. It stretches south for 100 miles (160 km) from Admiralty Inlet and Whidbey Island (beyond which lie the straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca). Hood Canal is a large western extension. The sound is the submerged northern end of the Cowlitz-Puget trough, which extends for some 350 miles (565 km) between the Cascade Range and the Coast Ranges. The southern end of this trough is the Willamette River valley. Of the many streams that enter the sound from the east, the Skagit and Snohomish rivers and the Duwamish Waterway are navigable for a portion of their lengths. Puget Sound has many excellent deepwater harbours, including Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, and Port Townsend, which serve as outports for rich farmlands along the river estuaries. A naval shipyard at Bremerton adds military shipping to the sound’s large volume of local and international trade. The sound also serves as the southern terminus of the Inside Passage to Alaska. It provides a sheltered playground for pleasure boats and still yields a salmon catch, though the latter is much reduced from former levels. Whale-watching excursions are popular with tourists and constitute a lucrative business in the San Juan Islands of upper Puget Sound.

The sound, called Whulge by the Salish Indians, was explored in 1792 by British navigator George Vancouver and named by him for Peter Puget, a second lieutenant in his expedition, who probed the main channel.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.

Coast Salish

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Coast Salish

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Coast Salish, Salish-speaking North American Indians of the Northwest Coast, living around what are now the Strait of Georgia, Puget Sound, southern Vancouver Island, much of the Olympic Peninsula, and most of western Washington state. One Salishan group, the Tillamook, lived south of the Columbia River in Oregon. The Bella Coola, a group living farther to the north in British Columbia, probably migrated from the main body of Coast Salish. The Coast Salish probably migrated to the coast from the interior, where other Salish-speakers lived. They were culturally similar to the Chinook.

Like other Northwest Coast Indians before colonial contact, the Coast Salish lived principally on fish, although some groups living along the upper rivers relied more heavily on hunting. They built permanent winter houses of wood and used mat lodges for temporary camps.

Traditionally, the tribe’s basic social unit was the local group consisting of close relatives. Each extended family usually lived in one large house, and groups of houses formed a winter village; people dispersed during the summer for fishing, hunting, and berrying.

One of the most important Coast Salish events was the ceremonial distribution of gifts in the potlatch; potlatches enabled the host or sponsor to acquire or maintain prestige. Elaborate ceremonies held during the winter included dances inspired by spirits in dreams or trances. Many other forms of performance art were treated as property to which individuals or groups acquired exclusive rights by inheritance, marriage, or purchase.

Early 21st-century population estimates indicated more than 25,000 Coast Salish descendants in Canada and the United States.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Elizabeth Prine Pauls.