It is the center of the city's Asian American community. Within the district are the three neighborhoods known as Chinatown , Japantown and Little Saigon , named for the concentration of businesses owned by people of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese descent, respectively. The geographic area also once included Manilatown. It was the third community for the city's Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were driven out of other locations around modern-day Pioneer Square during the late 19th century.
A new Chinatown was established shortly after the Jackson Regrade in , which leveled terrain near King Street Station , alongside a Japantown in the same vicinity. The construction of Interstate 5 through the neighborhood in the s and the Kingdome nearby in led to further strain on the area.
The area was named the "International District" by the city government since the midth century, but the term's use is controversial among the Chinese American community. Like many other areas of Seattle, the neighborhood is multiethnic, but the majority of its residents are of Chinese ethnicity.
Chinese immigrants first came to the Pacific Northwest in the s, and by the s, some had settled in Seattle. The first in the city was Chin Chun Hock , a domestic worker who arrived in and later founded a general store and hotel. The Chinese quarter grew to include residences and shifted uphill from the waterfront into leased buildings around Washington Street. Following an economic crisis a few years later, a group of white Seattle residents drove out the city's Chinese population in February The Great Seattle Fire of further hindered the community.
Eventually, the Chinese re-established new quarters farther inland, along Washington St. Land values rose, especially with impending construction of the Smith Tower, and the people of Chinatown moved again, to the present and third location along King Street. Only the Hop Sing Tong managed to retain its building on 2nd and Washington. It sold this building about in order to purchase the former China Gate building at 7th Ave S in the current Chinatown.
