Yamhill County, Oregon

Yamhill County, Oregon
Yamhill County Courthouse in McMinnville
Location in the U.S. state of Oregon
Oregon's location in the U.S.
Founded	July 5, 1843
Seat	McMinnville
Largest city	McMinnville
Area
• Total	718 sq mi (1,860 km2)
• Land	716 sq mi (1,854 km2)
• Water	2.5 sq mi (6 km2), 0.3%
Population (est.)
• (2015)	102,659
• Density	139/sq mi (54/km²)
Congressional district	1st
Time zone	Pacific: UTC-8/-7
Website	www.co.yamhill.or.us

Yamhill County is a county in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 census, the population was 99,193. The county seat is McMinnville. The name's origin is probably an explorer's name for a local Native American tribe, the Yamhill, who are part of the North Kalapuyan family.

Yamhill County is part of the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is in the Willamette Valley.

The earliest known inhabitants of the area were the Yamhill (Yamhelas Indian Tribe, part of the Kalapooian family) Indians, who have inhabited the area for over 8000 years. They are one of the tribes incorporated into the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. In 1857 they were forced to migrate to the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation created in Oregon's Coastal Range two years earlier.

The earliest non-native settlers were employees of the various fur companies operating in Oregon Country, who started settling there around 1814. But it was the establishment of the Oregon Trail that led to significant migration to the area.

Yamhill District (later county) was created on July 5, 1843, five years before the Oregon Territory was established. It was one of the original four districts created by Oregon's first Provisional Legislature, along with Twality (later Washington), Clackamas, and Champooick (later Marion) counties. The district was originally over 12,000 square miles (31,000 km²), an area that was broken up into twelve present-day counties.