Walla Walla

City and administrative headquarters of Walla Walla County, southeast Washington, USA, lying near the southern boundary of the state, in the centre of a wheat-producing area; population (2000) 29,700. An agricultural processing centre for its wheat and truck farming valley, it also has food processing plants, lumber mills, and a container factory. It is the home of Whitman College (1859) and Walla Walla Community College (1967). It also has two military bases.

A fur trading post was established near here in 1818, and the missionary Marcus Whitman built the first European home in 1836. Members of the mission were massacred in 1847 by Cayuse American Indians. In the late 19th century Walla Walla was the regional capital of the Columbia river-basin wheatlands.