Bellingham, Washington

Bellingham is the county seat of Whatcom County in the northwestern part of Washington state. It is also the 12th largest city in the state. Bellingham covers 31.7 sq mi (82.2 sq km) and has a population of 81,000 people (2011 estimate). The city faces Bellingham Bay, which is separated from the Pacific Ocean by Lummi Island, Portage Island and the Lummi Peninsula. The Strait of Georgia connects Bellingham Bay with the ocean.

Bellingham, Washington
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DowntownBellinghamFromSehomeHill.jpg
Author: Dwiki


Bellingham experiences a damp marine oceanic climate. Summers are warm and dry while winters are cold and wet. July and August are the warmest months, when the average high temperature rises to 73°F (23°C). January is the coldest month, with average low temperature of 35°F (2°C). November is the wettest month, receiving 5.58 in (141.7 mm) of rain.

The history of Bellingham goes back to 1792, when British naval officer Captain George Vancouver explored the area and named the bay Bellingham Bay, after Sir William Bellingham, the Royal Navy accountant ("controller of the storekeepers' accounts"). At that time, the town Bellingham has not been established. No permanent white settlement existed in Bellingham until 1854, when a settlement called Whatcom was founded. The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858 brought thousands of miners and settlers to Whatcom. Other villages established during this period including Sehome, Fairhaven and Bellingham itself.

In 1903, the city of Bellingham was founded by merging Whatcom, Sehome, Fairhaven and Bellingham. The city was initially intended to be called New Whatcom, but when the Washington State legislature outlawed the use of the word "New" in city names, it was planned to be known as Whatcom. This faced opposition from the people in Fairhaven. Eventually the name Bellingham became the choice of the majority.

Visiting Bellingham

Bellingham is connected via Interstate 5 to the rest of the country. You can also fly there, arriving at the Bellingham International Airport (BLI), which receives direct flights from Seattle as well as Honolulu, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix and San Diego.

Places of Interest in Bellingham

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Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

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