Biohazard Cleanup Near Cornwall Park Bellingham, WA

Bellingham is the county seat and largest city of Whatcom County, Washington, sitting on Bellingham Bay about 21 miles south of the Canada–United States border and 90 miles north of Seattle.

Bellingham was officially incorporated on December 28, 1903, through the consolidation of four separate towns on the bay: Whatcom, Sehome, Bellingham, and Fairhaven.

The city takes its name from Bellingham Bay, which Captain George Vancouver named in 1792 for Sir William Bellingham, a British naval stores official.

The 2020 census counted 91,482 people in Bellingham living in 39,236 households.

Bellingham is the northernmost city with a population of more than 90,000 people in the contiguous United States.

Bellingham's nickname is the 'City of Subdued Excitement.'

Coal was mined under and around Bellingham from 1854, when the Sehome coal mine opened, until the last Bellingham Bay mine closed in 1955 after a century of mining.

Western Washington University, founded in 1893 as the New Whatcom Normal School and a university since 1977, enrolls more than 15,000 students on its campus above Bellingham Bay.

Bellingham is also home to Whatcom Community College and Bellingham Technical College, making higher education one of the city's defining industries.

Bellingham is the southern terminus of the Alaska Marine Highway, the Alaska state ferry system that links the continental United States with Southeast Alaska.