Explore Seattle

The Seattle Central Library is the main building of the Seattle Public Library, opened in 2004 and designed by Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus of OMA with LMN Architects. Its 11 levels sit behind a diagonal net of steel and glass; inside, visitors can walk the Books Spiral, a continuous ramp through the nonfiction collection, and see the Red Floor.

The Seattle Aquarium is a public aquarium on the Elliott Bay waterfront, opened in 1977 on Piers 59 and 60. Its exhibits focus on the marine life of Puget Sound and the Pacific, with harbor seals, sea otters and an underwater dome, while the Ocean Pavilion, opened in 2024, shows sharks and rays of the Coral Triangle.

Pacific Science Center is a science museum at Seattle Center, housed in the former United States Science Pavilion that Minoru Yamasaki designed for the 1962 world's fair, with white arches rising above its reflecting pools. Its buildings hold hands-on science exhibits, a planetarium, two IMAX theaters and a laser dome.

The Museum of Pop Culture is a museum of contemporary pop culture at Seattle Center, founded by Paul Allen and opened in 2000 as the Experience Music Project. Its building by Frank Gehry is clad in folded sheets of coloured and polished metal, and the Seattle Center Monorail runs through it. Exhibitions cover rock music, science fiction, fantasy, horror and video games.

Gas Works Park is a 7.7-hectare park on the north shore of Lake Union, on the site of a coal gasification plant that ran from 1906 to 1956. Landscape architect Richard Haag kept the rusting towers and pipework when the park opened in 1975; around them are lawns, a play barn and a grassy hill with views across the lake to downtown Seattle.

Woodland Park Zoo is a zoological garden in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of north Seattle, laid out in part of Woodland Park, which the city bought in 1899. Its roughly 37 hectares hold about 900 animals of some 250 species in habitats grouped by region, among them the Assam Rhino Reserve and a Humboldt penguin exhibit.

The National Nordic Museum in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood presents the history, art and culture of the Nordic countries and of the Nordic immigrants who settled in the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 1980 as the Nordic Heritage Museum, it moved in 2018 into a new building on NW Market Street and received its national designation in 2019.

The Museum of Flight is an air and space museum at the southern end of Boeing Field in Tukwila, just south of Seattle, founded in 1965. The glass-walled Great Gallery holds more than 50 historic aircraft, Boeing's original 1909 Red Barn factory stands beside it, and the Aviation Pavilion shows a Concorde and the first jet Air Force One.