Soap Lake, Washington
10 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1982. It stands in the Ephrata-Soap Lake census division. It lies in ZIP code area 98851. It lies near Grand Coulee. The Survey maps it on the Soap Lake quadrangle. 1,691 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 1,106 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresSoap Lake grew from 1,514 to 1,691 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 1,514 | |
| 2020 | 1,691 | +177 (+12%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
5 surveys from 10 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1953 USGS Ritzville quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1956 USGS Soap Lake quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
- 1959 USGS Ritzville quadrangle1:250000
- 1965 USGS Ritzville quadrangle1:250000
- 1982 USGS Moses Lake quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
Fires near this place
2 since 1994Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Soap Lake between 1994 and 2006, burning about 5,005 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 1 |
| Natural | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 July 1994 | Natural | 5.0 acres | Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters | not named |
| 28 June 2006 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5,000 acres | Washington State Department of Natural Resources Headquarters | ROCKY FORD |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Mines and quarries near this place
10 of 14 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 14 workings within 5 miles of Soap Lake: 12 past producers, 1 prospect, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Clay, Stone, Dimension, Pumice. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grant Orchard Pit | Stone, Dimension | Past Producer | ||
| Rock Top | Clay | Prospect | ||
| Soap Lake | Pumice | Past Producer | ||
| Soap Lake | Salt, Sodium | Occurrence | ||
| Ephrata Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Sand Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Soap Lake Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Tommer Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unnamed Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Unnamed Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer |
Storms near this place
3 since 1998Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Soap Lake in 3 storm reports between 1998 and 2019: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 funnel cloud, 1 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Soap Lake | $5,000 | trees and power lines down. |
| March 2019 | Flood | Soap Lake | $500 | A section of RD 19-NW near Soap Lake was temporarily closed due to snow melt flooding. |
| May 2000 | Funnel Cloud | Soap Lake | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Soap Lake | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q592056 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1512667. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.




