With a name meaning “beautiful view”, a surrounding landscape of natural beauty and an interesting and engaging city centre, Americans often declare Bellevue as one of the best places to live in the USA. Located in the East of King Country, and just across Lake Washington from Seattle, Bellevue is the second largest city in the state and home to over 122,000 people. The city is a wonderful combination of scenic beauty, surrounded by nature trails, and urban lifestyle, with an abundance of downtown entertainment, a reputation for successful young businesses and a prosperous economy.

In the city, there is a wealth of cultural attractions to enjoy, including Bellevue Arts Museum, which acts as a space for fine art and design, and the Kids Quest Children’s Museum, which specialises in educational creativity. The Meydenbauer Centre is an events venue with a 410-seat theatre where visitors can enjoy concerts, operas and ballets and Bellevue Botanical Garden provides an outdoor space for nature lovers to learn about various plant life. Downtown Bellevue is best for shopping and dining, in the commercial centre, where visitors can find a range of designer labels, high street brands, fine dining restaurants and international cuisine. Nature surrounds the city, and visitors can easily escape to the waterfront of Kirkland, the wine country of Woodinville or the wilderness of the nearby mountains.

As the gateway to the Pacific Northwest, Sea-Tac International Airport serves Bellevue and its surrounding area, as well as Seattle, with various public transport connections going to the city, only 27 kilometres away. Both the Metro Transit and Sound Transit have links between Seattle and Bellevue, which is only 14 kilometres away, or drivers can reach the city via the SR20, over the Evergreen Point Bridge.

In 1869, William Meydenbauer founded Bellevue, which began as a small and humble rural development, before the opening of Lake Washington Floating Bridge in 1940, which provided new connections to the city. In 1963, the city boomed again with another bridge, the Evergreen Point, and it became a centre of business and home to several skyscrapers. Now, Bellevue is a vast and successful city hosting numerous significant, big name companies including Expedia, Microsoft and Nintendo.