Spokane (/spoʊˈkæn/ ^ⓘ spoh-KAN ; Spokane: sƛ̓x̌etkʷ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, 92 miles (148 km) south of the Canadian border, 18.5 miles (30 km) west of the Washington–Idaho border, and 279 miles (449 km) east of Seattle via Interstate 90. It is the second-most populous city in Washington with a population of 228,989 at the 2020 census, while the Spokane metropolitan area has an estimated 605,000 residents.

Spokane is the economic and cultural center of the Inland Northwest. It is known as the birthplace of Father's Day, and locally by the nickname of "Lilac City". Officially, Spokane goes by the nickname of Hooptown USA, due to Spokane's annual hosting of the Spokane Hoopfest, the world's largest basketball tournament. The city and the wider Inland Northwest area are served by Spokane International Airport, 5 miles (8 km) west of Downtown Spokane, which is located near another airfield at Fairchild Air Force Base.

The first people to live in the area, the Spokane tribe (their name meaning "children of the sun" in Salishan), lived off plentiful game. David Thompson explored the area with the westward expansion and establishment of the North West Company's Spokane House in 1810. This trading post was the first long-term European settlement in Washington. Completion of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1881 brought many settlers from America to the Spokane area. The same year it was officially incorporated as a city under the name of Spokane Falls (it was re-incorporated under its current name ten years later). In the late 19th century, gold and silver were discovered in the Inland Northwest. The local economy depended on mining, timber, and agriculture until the 1980s. Spokane hosted the first environmentally themed World's fair at Expo '74.

Many of the downtown area's older Romanesque Revival-style buildings were designed by architect Kirtland Cutter after the Great Spokane Fire of 1889, which damaged much of the downtown commercial district. The city is also home to the Riverfront and Manito parks, the Smithsonian-affiliated Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, the Davenport Hotel, and the Fox and Bing Crosby theaters. The Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, and the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist serves as that of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane. The Spokane Washington Temple in the east of the county serves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gonzaga University was established in 1887 by the Jesuits, and the private Presbyterian Whitworth University was founded three years later and moved to north Spokane in 1914.

In sports, the region's professional and semi-professional sports teams include the Spokane Indians in Minor League Baseball. The Spokane Chiefs in the Western Hockey League. The Spokane Velocity in USL League One with a women's first division team Spokane Zephyr FC in USL Super League. The Gonzaga Bulldogs collegiate basketball team competes at the Division I level. As of 2010, Spokane's major daily newspaper, The Spokesman-Review, had a daily circulation of over 76,000.

The first humans to live in the Spokane area were hunter-gatherers that lived off plentiful fish and game; early human remains have been dated to 8,000 to 13,000 years ago. The Spokane tribe, after which the city is named (the name meaning "children of the sun" or "sun people" in Salishan),^[a] are believed to be either their direct descendants, or descendants of people from the Great Plains. When asked by early white explorers, the Spokanes said their ancestors came from "up North." Early in the 19th century, the Northwest Fur Company sent two white fur trappers west of the Rocky Mountains to search for fur. These were the first white men met by the Spokanes, who believed they were sacred, and set the trappers up in the Colville River valley for the winter.

The explorer-geographer David Thompson, working as head of the North West Company's Columbia Department, became the first European to explore the Inland Empire (now called the Inland Northwest). Crossing what is now the Canada–US border from British Columbia, Thompson wanted to expand the North West Company further south in search of furs. After establishing the Kullyspell House and Saleesh House trading posts in what are now Idaho and Montana, Thompson then attempted to expand further west. He sent out two trappers, Jacques Raphael Finlay and Finan McDonald, to construct a fur trading post on the Spokane River, which flows west from Lake Coeur d'Alene to the Columbia River, and trade with the local Indians. This post was established in 1810, at the confluence of the Little Spokane and Spokane rivers, becoming the first enduring European settlement of significance in what later became Washington state. Known as the Spokane House, or simply "Spokane", it was in operation from 1810 to 1826. Operations were run by the British North West Company and later the Hudson's Bay Company, and the post was the headquarters of the fur trade between the Rocky and Cascade mountains for 16 years. After the latter business absorbed the North West Company in 1821, the major operations at the Spokane House were eventually shifted north to Fort Colville, reducing the post's significance.

In 1836, Reverend Samuel Parker visited the area and reported that around 800 Native Americans were living in Spokane Falls. A medical mission was established by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman to cater for Cayuse Indians and hikers of the Oregon Trail at Walla Walla in the south. After the Whitmans were killed by Indians in 1847, Reverend Cushing Eells established Whitman College in their memory, also setting up the first church in the Spokane area.