Tacoma is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, 32 miles (51 km) southwest of Seattle, 36 miles (58 km) southwest of Bellevue, 31 miles (50 km) northeast of the state capital, Olympia, 58 miles (93 km) northwest of Mount Rainier National Park, and 80 miles (130 km) east of Olympic National Park. The city's population was 219,346 at the time of the 2020 census. Tacoma is the second-largest city in the Puget Sound area and the third-most populous in the state. Tacoma also serves as the center of business activity for the South Sound region, which has a population of about 1 million.

Mount Rainier, also known as Tahoma, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest in the United States. The mountain is located in Mount Rainier National Park about 59 miles (95 km) south-southeast of Seattle. With a summit elevation of 14,411 ft (4,392 m), it is the highest mountain in the U.S. state of Washington, the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States, and the tallest in the Cascade Volcanic Arc.