- King County — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
King County, located in Western Washington, covers some 2,100 square miles extending from the crest of the Cascade Range to Puget Sound, including Vashon Island. It is Washington’s most populous county and contains its largest city – Seattle. It is the commercial center of the Pacific Northwest with public and private enterprises including Boeing, Costco, Group Health Cooperative, Washington Mutual, Starbucks Coffee Co., Amazon.com, University of Washington, Microsoft, PACCAR Inc, Weyerhaeuser, Seattle City Light, and the Port of Seattle, which operates the nation’s eighth-largest port as well as Sea-Tac International Airport…
- The City of Shoreline is one of Seattle’s closest suburbs. Located immediately north of Seattle’s city limits, the area was settled first by homesteaders and soon after by vacationers. Over time a community formed, and although Seattle’s boundaries have pushed farther north, Shoreline has preserved its autonomy and, in the 1990s, incorporated as a city in its own right.
- Central African Republic (Wikipedia)
The Central African Republic (CAR), formerly known as Ubangi-Shari, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest, and Cameroon to the west. Bangui is the country’s capital and largest city, at the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Central African Republic covers a land area of about 620,000 square kilometres (240,000 sq mi). As of 2021, it had an estimated population of around 5.5 million. As of 2024, the Central African Republic is the scene of a civil war, which has been ongoing since 2012.