Kennewick, Washington
city in Benton County, Washington, USA
Kennewick () is a city in Benton County, Washington, United States. It is located along the southwest bank of the Columbia River, just southeast of the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima rivers and across from the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers. It is the most populous of the three cities collectively referred to as the Tri-Cities (the others being Pasco and Richland). The population was 83,921 at the 2020 census, and was estimated at 86,728 in 2024.
The discovery of Kennewick Man along the banks of the Columbia River provides evidence of Native Americans' settlement of the area for at least 9,000 years. American settlers began moving into the region in the late 19th century as transportation infrastructure was built to connect Kennewick to other settlements along the Columbia River. The construction of the Hanford Site at Richland accelerated the city's growth in the 1940s as workers from around the country came to participate in the Manhattan Project. While Hanford and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory continue to be major sources of employment, the city's economy has diversified over time and Kennewick today hosts offices for Amazon and Lamb Weston.
History
Native peoples
Native Americans populated the area around modern-day Kennewick for millennia before being discovered and settled by European descendants. These inhabitants consisted of people from the Umatilla, Wanapum, Nez Perce, and Yakama tribes.
The public source identifies “Kennewick, Washington” as city in Benton County, Washington, USA. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kennewick, Washington and city.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q844033. VIAF identifies the subject as 150846342. The Library of Congress control number is n82155134. Authority coordinates are 46.203, -119.159. 5 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020 and 2024.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kennewick, Washington” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.