The heart of old and new Seattle offers something for everyone, from trendy Belltown to historic Pioneer Square and the diverse Central Area. The area's close-in neighborhoods have distinct personalities with attitudes to match.

• Belltown
• Capitol Hill
• Central Area
• Downtown
• Eastlake
• International District
• Madison Park/Madrona
• Magnolia
• Montlake
• Pioneer Square
• Queen Anne
• Sodo

All descriptions are from the Seattle PI

Residential and restaurant hotspot

Belltown is the epicenter of Seattle's restaurant scene, with hot nightclubs, cool shops, great places to llive, work or play.  The area combines artist lofts and high rise condos and apartments providing close-in housing. 

Capitol Hill is the second most densely populated neighborhood in Seattle and already Seattle's most fashionable residential districts in 1908.  Today the neighborhood  is the center of gay life in Seattle and also a center of the city's counterculture, while also home to some of the city's grandest mansions and many attractions.

Once a hotbed of the civil rights movement as memorialized in the names of many streets and public structures, the Central District today is a residential neighborhood of family-owned businesses, historic landmark houses, and despite gentrification, some of the lowest home prices in the city.

The cultural and financial center of the region and the city, downtown Seattle covers about 1.7 square miles.  Besides stunning views of Elliott Bay, it boasts towering offices, a revitalized shopping district of about 16 city blocks and entertainment outlets that keep it active into the evenings and weekends.

Founded about 1890, Seattle's Eastlake community is one of its oldest and quirkiest neighborhoods. The Boeing Co. built its first airplane factory there in 1917. And the community, known for its clusters of houseboats, received brief fame in the frothy romantic flick "Sleepless in Seattle."

Seattle's Chinatown and International District, south of downtown and east of Pioneer Square, retains its melting-pot identity, even as it gentrifies.  Local historians say the district is perhaps the only area in the continental United States where Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, African Americans, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Cambodians settled together to build a single neighborhood

The aristocrats of Seattle live in Madison Park. The neighborhood and nearby enclaves of Washington Park, Broadmoor, and Denny Blaine have attracted Seattle's wealthiest families for generations.  Its neighbor, Madrona, starkly contrasts with as a neighborhood that prides itself on its racial diversity and integration.

Located on a peninsula west of some of Seattle's busiest neighborhoods, Magnolia retains a small-town atmosphere, set off from the rest of the city by three bridges.  Though famous for its expensive homes with sweeping Puget Sound views, it also boasts many more affordable homes and rental units that add to its diversity.

The Montlake neighborhood wedged between the Broadway and the University neighborhoods draws its urban feel from the waterway that cuts through it.  Crafstman-style homes and one-story Tudor houses dominate the area and lend a placid air to the Montlake Cut, a part of the ship-bearing canal between Puget Sound and Lake Washington.

Pioneer Square is where the city's downtown got its start in 1852.  During the gold rush days from 1897 to 1898, miners flocked there.  Today it attracts businesses from the 21st-Century by mixing dot-com enrepreneurs with artists, street people, sports fans from nearby arenas, and plenty of night revelers drawn to its numerous cafés and clubs.

A view seen around the world

People around the world are familiar with pictures that show the Space Needle set against downtown skyscrapers with majestic Mount Rainier in the background.  That famous vantage point is from Queen Anne, a neighborhood of sweeping vistas and cultural appointments.

Carved from a last-century warehouse and industrial district, the nickname for the home of the city's major professional athletic complexes plays off its position South of Downtown, or SODO.  The name originally refered to "South of the Dome" until that professional sports area, the Kingdome, was imploded to make way for a Seahawks stadium.