Yakima County, a state and national leader in several farm products, is located in south central Washington. Named after the Yakima Native-Americans, whose large reservation covers nearly 39 percent of the area, the county lies partly in the Cascade Range and partly in up folded ridges and a broad irrigated valley of the Columbia Plateau. Yakima, as a name, is from the Native-American word "eyakima" meaning "well fed people." Yakima County was created by the Washington Territorial Legislature on January 21, 1865.