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About Portland
Portland is a vibrant, growing city located in the heart of the Pacific Northwest. It is the 23rd largest city in America. The Portland market is comprised of cities in 4 counties, including Vancouver, Washington, which is generally considered to be part of the Portland market. The combined total population in these counties, Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Clark, is recently estimated by the US Census Bureau ( www.census.gov) in 2007 to be nearly 2 million. Multnomah County is geographically the smallest county in the country with the largest population.

Median income for the Portland market is $45,500. Ethnicity breaks down to 74.1% Caucasian, 12.4% African American, .8% American Indian, 4.3% Asian, 14.7% Hispanic/Latino and 6.3% some other race.

Big industries in Portland are technology-related, PC equipment and electronics, timber, paper products, farming, and mining.

Several magazines and websites have ranked Portland a top city for a variety of reasons. Click here to find out why we’re a great place to conduct your research.

“If you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes.” This common saying is pretty applicable from November through June. Temperatures generally range from the low 30’s to the mid 80’s. Average rainfall in Portland each year is around 37 inches. It rains about 155 days out of the year. We also get surprise beautiful, 60 degree sunny days in the middle of winter. Another common saying is “Only tourists carry umbrellas”.

Average snowfall in Portland city limits each year is around 2 inches. On Mt Hood, (our local mountain, a 1 hour drive from Portland to the summit) it’s about 45 feet per year.

We are surrounded with beautiful landscapes and natural treasures including the Columbia Gorge, the Cascade Mountain range which includes Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens, old-growth forests and waterfalls, Pacific Ocean beaches and the high desert.

The Columbia River gorge is considered by many to be the best place in the world for windsurfing. The fishing is also incredible, featuring many kinds of salmon, sturgeon, trout and other species.

Portland contains both the smallest and the largest city parks in America. The smallest park, Mill Ends Park is a mere 452 square inches big (about 2.5 feet in diameter) and was built as a park for Leprechauns. The small circle has featured many unusual items through the decades including a swimming pool for butterflies (complete with diving board) and a miniature ferris wheel. Click here to view the whole story behind the park.

The largest park, Forest Park, has over 5000 square acres making it the largest urban wilderness in the country.

Portland and Bend, Oregon are the only 2 contiguous US cities built with extinct cinder cone volcanoes inside their city limits. Portland’s Mount Tabor and Bend’s Pilot Butte. In fact, the whole Portland area sits atop a Plio-Pleistocene geological feature, called the Boring Lava Field, with 32 dormant and extinct cinder cones.

Click here to view suggestions for fun around the Portland Area!

• The famous Oregon Trail, discovered by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark while on an expedition organized by President Thomas Jefferson, ends in Oregon City which is a Portland suburb.

• Before it was incorporated in 1851, Portland was simply known as “The Clearing”. The name, Portland, was decided upon by 2 gentlemen (both settlers originally from Maine) by means of a flip of a coin, specifically, an 1835 Liberty Head Large Cent, known as the Portland Penny. Had the coin flip gone the other way, our city would be named Boston. The Portland Penny is on display in the lobby of the Oregon Historical Society to this day.

• There is no sales tax in Oregon.

• It is illegal to pump your own gasoline in Oregon.

• Oregon has more legalized forms of gambling than any other state in the country.

• Physician assisted suicide is legal in Oregon, as is medicinally prescribed marijuana. In recent years, both of these Oregonian rights have withstood challenges by the US Attorney General (in front of the US Supreme Court) based upon numerous public elections / ballot measures and overwhelming public support of the issues.

• Portland’s public transportation system, Tri-Met is considered to be one of the top 3 in the nation. Ever growing and expanding throughout the Metro area, the system is teeming with energy efficient buses, streetcars and MAX light rail trains. www.tri-met.org


• Portland is also well known for its large population of bicycle commuters. Recently the city began an ambitious campaign to improve bicycle safety at 14 major intersections by painting green bike boxes on the pavement for the riders. Click Here for city bike maps.



• Portland is known as the City of Roses. High above the city is the International Rose Test Garden featuring more than 500 varieties of roses cultivated continuously since 1917. Click here to view some of Portland’s beautiful gardens.

• Portland was home to the first professional NHL hockey team in the US, the Portland Rosebuds, from 1914-1918. They were the first American team to participate in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1916.

• Portland is home to NBA’s Portland Trailblazers, who play and practice at the Rose Garden Arena located just a few blocks away from our offices in Lloyd Center. Click here to view the Rose Garden Arena and other attractions in the Lloyd District.

• Portland has the second largest copper hammered statue in the country, Portlandia, which sits atop one of the buildings downtown on 5th Avenue. Largest being the Statue of Liberty.



• In the early 1900’s, Simon Benson, a tee-totaling lumber baron and philanthropist, was walking through his Portland mill one day and noticed the smell of alcohol on his workers' breath. When Benson asked these men why they drank in the middle of the day, they replied there was no fresh drinking water to be found downtown. Upon hearing this, Benson proceeded to commission 20 elegant freshwater drinking fountains, now known as the “Benson Bubblers”. Beer consumption in the city reportedly decreased 25 percent after the fountains were installed. These “Bubblers” can still be seen on Portland’s streets today.



• In 1996 the Willamette River overflowed its banks after an ice storm melt causing flooding and chaos in the streets on both sides of the river. Click here to read more.

• Ramona Quimby fans: Yes, there IS a Klickitat Street, and Ramona’s house does exist, just like the streets and homes of the rest of the characters from the Ramona and Henry Huggins books. Author Beverly Cleary grew up here. Grant Park contains the Beverly Clearly Sculpture Garden while the Hollywood Branch of the Multnomah County Library has a wall of Ramona’s neighborhood done in tile.

• Portland is home to Powell’s Books, the largest independent book store in the world with over a million books and the only 3-door elevator west of the Mississippi.

• Portland is known for being a live entertainment capital of the world, specifically for indie rock. Click here to view some of the best venues to see live music and concerts.

• Famous music bands who came from or relocated to Portland or Oregon: The Kingsmen, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Everclear, Modest Mouse, Storm and The Balls, The Mel Brown Trio, The Paul Delay Band, Curtis Salgado and Robert Cray (The original Blues Brothers), The Decemberists, The Dandy Warhols, Pink Martini, Quarterflash, Death Cab for Cutie, Nu Shooz, King Black Acid, Elliott Smith, The Shins, The Wipers, Sleater-Kinney, Spoon and former Pavement leader Steve Malkmus.

• Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain (of “Nirvana” fame) met in Portland. Courtney Love was a stripper at the infamous Mary’s Club in downtown Portland. Mary’s Club is also the first strip club in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

• Portland has more strip clubs per capita than any other city in the country. Click here to view some of the strip clubs in Portland.

• Some other notable celebrities who are from Portland include Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny and other characters), Sam Elliot (actor), Matt Groening (creator of the Simpsons), William Hurt (actor), Peter Jacobsen (Golfer), Douglas Engelbart (Creator of the computer mouse), Phil Knight (Co-founder of Nike), Ahmad Rashad (NFL Player and TV announcer), Damon Stoudamire (NBA star), Tommy Thayer (lead guitarist of KISS), Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman), Tonya Harding (Ice Skater), Bob Packwood (Senator), Gus Van Sant (film director) and River Phoenix (actor).

• Portland has the second largest gay and lesbian community in America, San Francisco being the largest.

• Portland is the largest city in the US currently with an openly gay Mayor. As a statewide aside, Oregon is also home of the United States’ first and only freely elected transgendered mayor.

• Portland is home to the world’s oldest teenage drag queen pageant, Rosebud & Thorn, established in 1975.

• A judge dismissed charges against a nude bicyclist in 2008 on the grounds that the city’s annual World Naked Bike Ride, which is attended by as many as 1,200 riders each year, “was a well-established tradition in Portland”.

• Portland has more micro breweries and theater pubs inside their city limits than any other city in the world.

• We host 5 beer festivals throughout the year, including the largest craft beer festival in North America (The Oregon Brewer’s Festival).

• In 1888 Henry Weinhard offered to pump free beer from his huge brewery just up the hill into the newly dedicated Skidmore Fountain, located on Portland’s west bank esplanade. He was turned down flat, of course! Click here to view a listing of recommended bars.

• The Portland area is also home to many wonderful wineries and vodka distilleries. Click here to view a listing of area pubs and wineries.

• Portland has a very seedy underbelly. In 1850 and for years after the tunnels underneath the streets of downtown Portland were created and used to hold people “shanghaied” from the streets and bars, who were then secretly ferried to the river where they were taken as slaves aboard ships. The mission of the tunnels was kept secret because we are a Port City on the river and the general public thought the tunnels were used to move freight to and from the Port. The tunnels were responsible for the disappearance of 1500 people per year. The Shanghai Tunnels are open to the public to tour. Click here for this and other general Portland attractions links.

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