Vancouver, city, seat of Clark County, southwestern Washington, a port at the head of deepwater navigation on the Columbia River, opposite Portland, Oregon; incorporated 1857. It is a commercial, manufacturing, and shipping center. Major manufactures include paper products and clothing. Clark College (1933) and state schools for the blind and deaf are here.
Fort Vancouver (now a national historic site) was established here by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1825 and was named for George Vancouver, the British navigator who surveyed (1792-94) the northern Pacific coast. The area came under the control of the U.S. government in 1846 and became the site of a military post in 1848. The American soldier and later president Ulysses S. Grant was stationed here in 1852 and 1853, and Grant House, his home, has been preserved as a museum. Population 42,834 (1980); 46,380 (1990); 143,560 (2000).
