This archipelago rests north of
Puget Sound, in the
Juan de Fuca Strait, Washington State, and is part of the
Salish Sea. The San Juan Islands are divided from their nearby Canadian cousins, the
Gulf Islands, by the
Haro Strait. Of the collection of more than 170 islands, the largest are
San Juan,
Orcas, and
Lopez, followed by the smaller, sparsely inhabited, Stuart, Waldron, Lummi, Shaw, Blakey,
Cypress, Guemes, and Decatur islands.
1Though
San Juan Island planted the seed for the Pig War, the surrounding islands, too, were swept into the
outcome of the political fray, and ceded to the United States in 1872 by boundary-arbiter
Emperor William I of Germany.
2