22 Facts About Puget Sound

Puget Sound is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea.

Puget Sound extends approximately 100 miles from Deception Pass in the north to Olympia in the south.

Term "Puget Sound" is used not just for the body of water but the Puget Sound region centered on the sound.

Puget Sound is the second-largest estuary in the United States, after Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia.

Different term for Puget Sound, used by a number of Native Americans and environmental groups, is Whulge, an anglicization of the Lushootseed name, which means "sea, salt water, ocean, or sound".

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Under this definition, Puget Sound includes the waters of Hood Canal, Admiralty Inlet, Possession Sound, Saratoga Passage, and others.

Depth of the basins is a result of the Puget Sound being part of the Cascadia subduction zone, where the terranes accreted at the edge of the Juan de Fuca Plate are being subducted under the North American Plate.

The Seattle Fault cuts across Puget Sound, crossing the southern tip of Bainbridge Island and under Elliott Bay.

Puget Sound is part of a larger physiographic structure termed the Puget Trough, which is a physiographic section of the larger Pacific Border province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System.

Puget Sound is a large salt water estuary, or system of many estuaries, fed by highly seasonal freshwater from the Olympic and Cascade Mountain watersheds.

Tides in Puget Sound are of the mixed type with two high and two low tides each tidal day.

Puget Sound is generally accepted as the start of the Inside Passage.

Important marine flora of Puget Sound include eelgrass and various kelp, important kelps include canopy forming bull kelp .

Common forage fishes found in Puget Sound include Pacific herring, surf smelt, and Pacific sand lance .

Important benthopelagic fish of Puget Sound include North Pacific hake, Pacific cod, walleye pollock, and the spiny dogfish .

Puget Sound is home to numerous species of marine invertebrates, including sponges, sea anemones, chitons, clams, sea snails, limpets, crabs, barnacles starfish, sea urchins, and sand dollars.

The Olympia oyster, once common in Puget Sound, was depleted by human activities during the 20th century.

Puget Sound is home to a non-migratory and marine-oriented subspecies of great blue herons .

Some notable Coast Salish Indian tribes of the Puget Sound region include the Duwamish, Nisqually, Snoqualmie, and the Steilacoom people.

Puget Sound further named the entire region; New Georgia, after King George III.

Puget Sound was part of the disputed region until 1846, after which it became US territory.

However, the first permanent American settlement on Puget Sound was Tumwater, founded in 1845 by Americans who had come via the Oregon Trail.