International District

The locals call it I.D.  A mixture of Asian cultures, Downtown Seattle’s International District is different from the homogeneous Chinatowns of San Francisco and Vancouver. Chinese began settling here in the 1860s, Japanese in the 1890s, and today the I.D. also is home to Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Cambodians.

A variety of mom-and-pop enterprises predominates in the area – specialty food and grocery stores, herbal-medicine shops, dim sum palaces, and fortune-cookie factories. It is also home to the largest Asian grocery and retail store in the Northwest, Uwajimaya. Again, in contrast to the frentic economic vitality of other Chinatown districts, Seattle’s ID is quiet and laid-back. Check out Asian Condominium in Downtown Seattle’s International District.