Pacific Northwest - Geography

Geography

The Pacific Northwest is a diverse geographic region, dominated by several mountain ranges, including the Coast Mountains, the Cascade Range, the Olympic Mountains, the Columbia Mountains, and the Rocky Mountains. The highest peak in the Pacific Northwest is Mount Rainier, in the Washington Cascades, at 14,410 feet (4,392 m). Immediately inland from the Cascade Range there is a broad plateau, narrowing progressively northwards, only a few miles wide in Canada, and also getting higher. In the US this region, semi-arid and often completely arid, is known as the Columbia Plateau, while in British Columbia it is the Interior Plateau, also called the Fraser Plateau. The Columbia Plateau was the scene of massive ice-age floods, as a consequence there are many coulees, canyons, and plateaus. Much of the plateau, especially in eastern Washington, is irrigated farmland. The Columbia River cuts a deep and wide gorge around the rim of the Columbia Plateau, and through the Cascade Range on its way to the Pacific Ocean. After the Mississippi, more water flows through the Columbia than any other river in the lower 48 states.

Because many areas have plentiful rainfall and mild summers, the Pacific Northwest has some of North America's most lush and extensive forests, which are extensively populated with coast Douglas-fir trees, the second tallest growing evergreen conifer on earth. The region also contains specimens of the tallest trees on earth, the coast redwoods, in southwestern Oregon, but the largest of these trees are located just south of the California border in Northwestern California. Coastal forests in some areas are classified as temperate rain forest.

Coastal features are defined by the interaction with the Pacific and the North American continent. The coastline of the Pacific Northwest is dotted by numerous gulches, bays, mouths of rivers, coastal plains, and mountains or rocky features that seem to reach directly out of the sea. The Oregon Coast, the Burrard Inlet, Puget Sound, the mouth of the Columbia River, Coos Bay, and Humboldt Bay are some of the larger features along the hundreds of miles of coast that has been shaped and reshaped by weather and geologic forces.

The major cities of Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma all began as seaports supporting the logging, mining, and farming industries of the region, but have developed into major technological and industrial centers (such as the Silicon Forest), which benefit from their location on the Pacific Rim.

If defined as Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, the Pacific Northwest has four US National Parks: Crater Lake in Oregon, and Olympic, Mount Rainier, and North Cascades in Washington. If the Cascadia regional definition is used, then Redwood National and State Parks, beginning just south of the Oregon border, but located in California, is also included. Glacier Bay National Park is located in southeast Alaska, as is Wrangell–St. Elias National Park. Other outstanding natural features include the Oregon Coast, the Columbia River Gorge, the Columbia River, Mount St. Helens, and Hells Canyon. There are several Canadian National Parks in the Pacific Northwest, including Pacific Rim National Park on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Mount Revelstoke National Park and Glacier National Park in the Selkirk Range alongside Rogers Pass, Kootenay National Park and Yoho National Park on the British Columbia flank of the Rockies, Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve in the Queen Charlotte Islands, and the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve in the Strait of Georgia. Although unprotected by national parks and only a handful of provincial parks, the south-central Coast Mountains in British Columbia contain the five largest mid-latitude icefields in the world.