The Most Beautiful Places in Washington State
8 places ยท updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Washington State are Mount Rainier, Space Needle and Mount St. Helens. The list covers 8 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Washington State packs volcanoes, rainforest and desert into a single state. The Cascade Range, a chain of volcanoes fed by the ocean plate sliding beneath the continent, divides a wet western side from a dry interior. On the Olympic Peninsula, Pacific storms drop some of the heaviest rainfall in the country, while to the east the Columbia Plateau of ancient basalt was scoured at the end of the last ice age by some of the largest floods known on Earth.
The volcanoes dominate the skyline. Mount Rainier, the highest peak in the state, carries more glacial ice than any other mountain in the contiguous United States and is visible from Seattle on a clear day. Mount St. Helens lost its summit in the eruption of 18 May 1980, leaving a horseshoe crater above a landscape still recovering. In the North Cascades, Mount Shuksan rises in sharp glaciated ridges, and Diablo Lake below shines turquoise with fine rock flour carried down from the glaciers.
The rest of the state is just as varied. The Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park is draped in moss and ferns beneath giant spruce and hemlock. In the dry east, Palouse Falls drops into a deep basalt bowl, and Dry Falls is the cliff of a waterfall that once dwarfed Niagara, now silent above a string of small lakes. In Seattle, the Space Needle, built for the 1962 World's Fair, gives the city its signature outline.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mount Rainier | Volcano | |
| 2 | Space Needle | Observation tower | |
| 3 | Mount St. Helens | Volcano | |
| 4 | Diablo Lake | Reservoir | |
| 5 | Dry Falls, Washington | Waterfall | |
| 6 | Hoh Rainforest | Forest | |
| 7 | Palouse Falls | Waterfall | |
| 8 | Mount Shuksan | Mountain |
01 Mount Rainier
United States46.852ยฐ N 121.760ยฐ W
Image by Kranich17 from Pixabay On a clear day Mount Rainier floats over Seattle and Tacoma like a second horizon; locals simply call it "the Mountain". The volcano rises to about 4,391 metres, and because it stands alone above the lower Cascades it is the most topographically prominent peak in the contiguous United States.
Did you know? Before a huge collapse about 5,000 years ago, the volcano probably stood near 16,000 feet, well over a thousand feet higher than today.
02 Space Needle
United States ยท 3.4 km from Seattle47.620ยฐ N 122.349ยฐ W
Image by Sebastian_127 from Pixabay The Space Needle was built for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and finished in under a year: work began in April 1961 and the last elevator car was installed the day before the fair opened in April 1962. Its shape came from a compromise.
Did you know? The underground foundation weighs about as much as the entire tower standing above it, and 72 bolts, each 30 feet long, hold the two together.
03 Mount St. Helens
United States46.200ยฐ N 122.189ยฐ W
Image by 12019 from Pixabay Mount St. Helens, known to the Cowlitz people as Lawetlat'la, is an active volcano in the Cascade Range of southwestern Washington, about 83 km northeast of Portland, Oregon. Before 1980 its smooth, snow-covered cone was so regular that some called it the Fujiyama of America.
Did you know? Ash from the eruption reached Idaho by noon and was detected in Edmonton, Alberta, by the next morning.
04 Diablo Lake
United States48.714ยฐ N 121.131ยฐ W
Josh Lewis ยท CC BY-SA 3.0 Diablo Lake is the most vividly coloured stretch of water in the North Cascades: a reservoir on the upper Skagit River in Washington whose surface glows a milky turquoise against dark forest and grey granite. The colour comes from the glaciers high on the surrounding peaks.
Did you know? More than 100,000 people had taken the Skagit Project tours by 1941, staying overnight in company dormitories at Newhalem.
05 Dry Falls, Washington
Dry Falls
United States47.606ยฐ N 119.354ยฐ W
Ikiwaner ยท CC BY-SA 3.0 6 km) wide and 400 feet (120 m) high in the Grand Coulee of central Washington. Where the water once poured over its four great alcoves there are now only dark rock walls and small lakes in the plunge pools below, set in a landscape that looks freshly scoured.
Did you know? Together the floods scoured an estimated 210 cubic kilometres of soil, sediment and basalt from the Channeled Scablands and carried it downstream.
06 Hoh Rainforest
United States47.861ยฐ N 123.925ยฐ W
Sualkdd ยท CC BY-SA 3.0 The Hoh Rainforest on the western side of the Olympic Peninsula is one of the few places in the temperate world where a forest looks the way the word "primeval" suggests.
Did you know? When a nurse log finally rots away, the trees that grew on it are left in a straight line on stilt-like roots, a formation called a colonnade.
07 Palouse Falls
United States46.664ยฐ N 118.224ยฐ W
ะกัะธะฒะตะฝ ะั ยท CC BY-SA 3.0 Palouse Falls appears with no warning. The open farmland of south-eastern Washington gives little hint of what lies ahead until the ground opens into a basalt canyon, and the Palouse River drops about 60 m (200 ft) in a single plunge into a round bowl walled with rock.
Did you know? Bradt's 2009 kayak record sparked new measurements: his team put the main drop at 186 ft, a Whitman College survey at 175 to 180 ft.
08 Mount Shuksan
United States48.832ยฐ N 121.603ยฐ W
Frank Kovalchek from Anchorage, Alaska, USA ยท CC BY 2.0 Mount Shuksan rises in the North Cascades of Washington as a sculpture of rock and ice: glaciers spill from its flanks, rock ridges climb to a sharp three-sided summit pyramid, and its reflection in the still water of Picture Lake has made it a favourite of photographers.
Did you know? Glaciologists have measured the Lower Curtis Glacier every year since 1984, making it one of the longest-watched glaciers in the North Cascades.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented โ the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Washington State?
- On our list, Mount Rainier ranks first, followed by Space Needle and Mount St. Helens.
- Why is Diablo Lake turquoise?
- Glaciers in the surrounding North Cascades grind rock into a fine powder known as glacial flour. Carried into the lake by meltwater, these particles stay suspended and reflect the turquoise colour.
- What happened at Mount St. Helens in 1980?
- On 18 May 1980, an earthquake triggered a huge landslide on the volcano's north face, releasing a lateral blast and eruption that removed the summit and flattened forests for miles around. It was the deadliest and most destructive volcanic event in recorded US history.
- How was Dry Falls formed?
- At the end of the last ice age, repeated outbursts from glacial Lake Missoula sent enormous floods across eastern Washington. The water poured over a cliff several kilometres wide at Dry Falls, creating one of the largest waterfalls known; today the cliff stands dry.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Washington State?
- In our collection, the places in Washington State are most often mountains (3), volcanoes (2), waterfalls (2) and reservoirs (1).
- How many places are on this list in Washington State?
- The list covers 8 places.