Whatcom County, Washington

Whatcom County is a county in Washington, United States, on the Canadian border 90 miles north of Seattle. It had a population of 226,847 at the 2020 census, an estimated 230,503 by 2024, and covers 2,107 square miles (5,460 km2) of land centred near 48°50′34″N 121°50′11″W.

Bellingham is the county seat and largest city; its postal code is 98225. The county holds 7 cities, 8 census-designated places and 1 unincorporated community, and it runs on Pacific Time. Its FIPS code is 53073.

Towns & Villages in Whatcom County

Whatcom County has 17 named places with a current population figure or ZIP code: 7 incorporated cities and 9 unincorporated communities, 8 of them Census Bureau CDPs. The Type column marks incorporated cities as City (or City · seat for Bellingham); everything else is CDP or Unincorp.

Three names on the old list need sorting out. Fairhaven is not a separate place — it is a historic waterfront neighborhood inside Bellingham’s city limits, absorbed by consolidation in 1903. Point Roberts is a genuine pene-exclave: it sits on the tip of the Tsawwassen Peninsula south of the 49th parallel, and the only land route in and out runs 25 miles through British Columbia. Van Zandt has no current Census Bureau population figure, so it is listed as an unincorporated community rather than a CDP.

ZIP Codes

• 98225, 98226, 98227, 98228, 98229 — Bellingham
• 98264 — Lynden
• 98248 — Ferndale
• 98230/98231 — Blaine (also serves Birch Bay)
• 98247 — Everson
• 98295 — Sumas
• 98276 — Nooksack
• 98281 — Point Roberts
• 98244 — Kendall, Deming and Glacier share one rural ZIP
• 98240 — Custer
• 98266 — Maple Falls
• 98220 — Acme and Van Zandt

Sudden Valley has no ZIP of its own; mail there is delivered under Bellingham’s 98226.

Geography

The county runs from tidewater to the summit of Mount Baker, a 10,781-foot glaciated volcano in the North Cascades, a rise of more than two vertical miles inside county lines. The North Fork Nooksack River drains the Mount Baker Highway corridor through Glacier, Maple Falls and Deming before joining the main Nooksack, which floods the lowland towns of Everson, Nooksack and Sumas on a regular cycle — the November 2021 flood damaged 85 percent of the homes in Sumas. Lake Whatcom, east of Bellingham, is the city’s drinking-water reservoir and the shoreline for the Sudden Valley community.

Whatcom County borders Skagit County to the south and Okanogan County to the east across the Cascade crest. To the west, across the Strait of Georgia, lies Washington’s San Juan County — a different county from the Colorado county of the same name that this site currently covers, so no link is given here. The entire northern boundary is the Canada–U.S. line, shared with the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley regional districts of British Columbia.

Demographics

The county counted 226,847 residents at the 2020 census and an estimated 230,503 by 2024, a density of roughly 108 people per square mile of land. Bellingham and Ferndale are the two largest communities, followed by Lynden. Median household income was $81,784 in 2024, a figure that has grown roughly 1 percent a year since 2020. Western Washington University, based in Bellingham, accounts for a large share of the county’s 18-to-24 population.

Economy & Local Life

Health care and social assistance is the largest employment sector, with about 15,652 workers, followed by educational services at 11,940 (driven by Western Washington University’s more than 16,000 students) and manufacturing at 11,430. PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham is the county’s single largest employer, with more than 3,100 staff. Two oil refineries at Cherry Point, north of Ferndale, anchor the manufacturing sector. Agriculture remains central to the Lynden and Everson valleys: Whatcom County dairies and berry farms produce 60 to 80 million pounds of raspberries a year, the largest share of any county in the United States. The county’s best-known annual events are the Northwest Washington Fair in Lynden each August and the Ski to Sea relay race each Memorial Day weekend, which runs from Mount Baker to Bellingham Bay.

History

The Washington Territorial Legislature created Whatcom County from Island County in March 1854. The name comes from the Lummi word Xwot’qom, generally translated as “noisy water,” referring to the falls on Whatcom Creek in what is now downtown Bellingham. The 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott ceded most of the region’s land to the United States and established the reservations of the Lummi Nation and, later, the Nooksack Indian Tribe, both still headquartered in the county today. Coal mining drove Bellingham’s early growth from the 1850s until the last mine closed in 1955. In September 1907, a mob of several hundred white millworkers drove out Bellingham’s South Asian laborers in a episode of racial violence now known as the Bellingham riots, forcing most of the city’s Sikh and Punjabi residents to flee north to Canada.

Getting There

Interstate 5 runs the length of the county from Bellingham to the Peace Arch border crossing at Blaine, the busiest passenger crossing on the Canadian border. State Route 542, the Mount Baker Highway, is the only paved route east to Glacier and the ski area. A second border crossing, Sumas–Huntingdon, connects State Route 9 to Abbotsford, British Columbia.

• Seattle — 90 miles south
• Vancouver, BC — 52 miles northwest
• Mount Vernon — about 25 miles south
• Abbotsford, BC — about 15 miles north

Bellingham International Airport (BLI) is the county’s commercial airport. Amtrak Cascades trains stop at Fairhaven Station in Bellingham, the northern U.S. terminus of the route to Vancouver, BC.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Whatcom County?
Whatcom County is in the northwestern corner of Washington, United States, on the Canadian border, about 90 miles north of Seattle and adjoining Metro Vancouver.

What is the population of Whatcom County?
Whatcom County had a population of 226,847 at the 2020 census, estimated at 230,503 by 2024.

How big is Whatcom County?
The county covers 2,107 square miles (5,460 km2) of land plus 397 square miles of water, mostly Puget Sound and Georgia Strait shoreline.

What is the county seat of Whatcom County?
Bellingham is the county seat and the county’s largest city, with a 2020 population of 91,482.

How many towns are in Whatcom County?
The county has 7 incorporated cities — Bellingham, Lynden, Ferndale, Blaine, Everson, Sumas and Nooksack — plus 8 census-designated places and one unincorporated community.

What ZIP codes serve Whatcom County?
Bellingham uses 98225 through 98229; other main ZIPs are 98264 (Lynden), 98248 (Ferndale), 98230 (Blaine/Birch Bay), 98295 (Sumas), 98276 (Nooksack) and 98281 (Point Roberts).

Why does Point Roberts have no direct land route to the rest of the United States?
Point Roberts sits south of the 49th parallel on a peninsula attached to Canada. The 1846 Oregon Treaty fixed the border at that latitude regardless of the peninsula’s shape, so the only land route to the rest of Whatcom County runs 25 miles through British Columbia.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Washington.