Portland is Oregon's largest city, a major deep-water port, and an economic centre for the surrounding region. It has a diverse economy with a broad base of manufacturing, distribution, commercial trade, and regional government services. Manufactured goods include machinery, electronic equipment, metal products, transport equipment, timber, and wood products. Major interstate highways, rail lines, and an international airport serve the city. The area is also noted for its scenic beauty, with Mount Hood and other snow-capped peaks of the Cascade Range visible from the city and the Columbia Gorge nearby. As a result, tourism is an important aspect of the city's economic base.

Portland is the site of a number of institutions of higher education, including Lewis and Clark College (1867), the University of Portland (1901), Reed College (1909), Portland State University (1946), the Pacific Northwest College of Art (1909), the University of Oregon Health Sciences University (1974), Concordia College (1905), Warner Pacific College (1937), Multnomah School of the Bible (1936), and the Western Conservative Baptist Seminary (1927). Points of interest include the Oregon Art Institute, which contains a collection of art and artefacts of Native Americans of the North-west; the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry; and the Portland Centre for the Performing Arts, home to the Portland Opera Association, the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, and the Oregon Ballet Theatre. The Memorial Coliseum is home of the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team. Popularly known as the City of Roses, Portland is the site of the International Rose Test Gardens of the American Rose Society and has been the scene of the annual Portland Rose Festival since 1907.

The community, laid out by white settlers in 1845, is named after Portland, Maine, the hometown of one of its early residents. The settlement grew as a supply point and trading centre for prospectors heading first for the California gold rush in the 1850s, and later for the Alaska and Klondike gold rushes in the 1890s. Industrial growth was spurred by the completion in the early 1880s of the first transcontinental railway connecting Portland to the eastern United States and by the construction in the 1930s of hydroelectric facilities on the Columbia and Willamette rivers. In 1980 a deluge of volcanic ash fell on the Portland area as a result of the eruptions of Mount St Helens in the nearby state of Washington. Population (1980) 366,383; (1990) 437,319.

 Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia.  1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation