City Limits of Washington State, May 2026

City limit boundaries were digitized from a variety of map sources including USGS quadrangles and WSDOT city maps. Generally, the data approach National Map Accuracy Standards for 1:24,000 scale: most well-defined points may be expected to fall within 40 feet of their true locations. Where a city limit follows the edge of a public right of way, the city limit line has been offset approximately 75 feet from the line representing the street on WSDOT-digitized 1:24,000-scale base data. Where a city limit adjoins a street not represented in WSDOT data, the city limit's position including the 75 foot offset has been estimated by measurement from the nearest available reference features in the base data (other roads, railroads, boundaries, section lines, pipelines, streams, etc.) Where a city limit follows a section line, this data set depicts it following that line as located on WSDOT's 1:24,000-scale base data, whether or not a right of way is coincident with the section line. In some cases, city limits follow a right of way centerline, and are shown coincident with the line representing that road in WSDOT's 1:24,000-scale base data. This occurs only on some old city limits established prior to the outlaw of such practice. Where a city limit follows the edge of a railroad right of way, the city limit has been offset a standard 100 feet from the line representing the railroad on WSDOT-digitized 1:24,000-scale base data. Beginning with the First Quarter of 2015, the offsets described above will no longer be applied to new annexations.