Seattle’s National Nordic Museum stands in Ballard, a neighborhood deeply shaped by Nordic immigration to the Pacific Northwest, and serves as a major center for Nordic and Nordic American history, art, and culture. Founded in 1980 as the Nordic Heritage Museum in a former school building, it moved in 2018 to a purpose-built facility on Northwest Market Street. In 2019 it received national designation from the U.S. Congress and adopted its current name. Its exhibitions span the broader Nordic world across thousands of years, while its library, oral histories, music archives, classes, performances, and festivals preserve and share immigrant traditions and community life.