city, seat (1886) of Yakima county, south-central Washington, U.S., on the Yakima River. In 1884 the Northern Pacific Railway selected the site of Yakima City (now Union Gap) as a construction headquarters. This plan was abandoned and a new settlement, known as North Yakima, was established 4 miles (6 km) north. With its desirable location on a railroad, North Yakima became a depot and cattle-shipping point. Irrigation, introduced in 1891, turned the Yakima Valley into a highly productive area supporting apples, pears, cherries, sugar beets, mint, hops, livestock, and dairying; in the 1980s a wine-making industry developed. Food processing is an important activity. The city, named for the Yakima Indians (whose reservation lies to the southwest), was incorporated as North Yakima, but North was dropped by the state legislature in 1918. The city is the site of Yakima Valley Community College (1928) and is a tourist centre and a gateway to Mount Rainier National Park. Inc. 1886. Pop. (1990) city, 54,827; Yakima MSA, 188,823; (2000) city, 71,845; Yakima MSA, 222,581.

The Yakima acquired historical distinction in the Yakima Indian Wars (1855–58), an attempt by the tribe to resist U.S. forces intent upon clearing the Washington Territory for prospectors and settlers. The conflict stemmed from a treaty that had been negotiated in 1855, according to which the Yakima and 13 other tribes were to be placed on a reservation and confederated as the Yakima Nation. Before the treaty could be ratified, however, a force united under the leadership of Yakima chief Kamaiakan, who declared his intention to drive all nonnatives from the region. After initial Yakima successes, the uprising spread to other tribes in Washington and Oregon. Three years of raids, ambushes, and engagements followed, until September 1858, when the Native American forces were decisively defeated at the Battle of Four Lakes on a tributary of the Spokane River.

In 1859 the treaty of 1855 was effected, with the Yakima and most of the other tribes confined to reservations and their fertile ancestral lands opened to colonial appropriation. Since that time, all of the residents of the Yakima Reservation have been referred to as members of the Yakima Nation.

Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 11,000 individuals of Yakima Nation ancestry.