Yelm, Washington

Yelm population, 2020 to 2024

Yelm added 1,015 residents from July 2020 to July 2024, a change of +9.5%. In the latest year it moved by +480. Among 125 Washington places of 5,000 or more, that growth ranks 20th; the median place changed by +2.6%. The median place of 5,000+ in Washington has 18,148 people, so Yelm is 65% of it.

Yelm covers 5.81 square miles of land, for 2,016 people per square mile of land. The median Washington place of 5,000+ has 2,694, so Yelm is less dense than the typical town.

What county Yelm is in

All of Yelm's residents live in Thurston County, which had 302,912 residents in 2024. Yelm holds 3.9% of the county's population. The shaded shape is on the map above; dots mark the eight nearest places.

ZIP codes in Yelm

2 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) overlap Yelm by at least 10% of the ZCTA's or the city's land: 98576, 98597. ZCTAs are Census approximations of USPS ZIP code delivery areas. The list comes from the 2020 ZCTA to place relationship file, so a city that annexed land after 2020 may reach into ZIP codes not listed here.

Where Yelm is

The Census internal point of Yelm is at 46.942600, -122.643200. Olympia, the capital, is 13.7 miles WNW in a straight line. The nearest larger place is Lacey, WA (58,644 people), 10.1 miles away. The nearest city of 100,000 or more is Tacoma, WA, 23.1 miles away.

Daylight in Yelm

At 46.94° N, Yelm gets about 15 h 53 min of daylight around the June solstice and 8 h 31 min around the December solstice, a swing of 7 h 22 min. Figures are sunrise to sunset from the SunCalc model for June 21 and December 21, 2026.

Places near Yelm

The eight nearest incorporated places of 1,000+ in Washington, measured between internal points. The closest is Rainier, 4.1 miles away, with 2,506 people.