The Pacific Coast Ranges (in Canada) and the Pacific Mountain System (in the United States) are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico. Both the Canadian and United States portions are often referred to as Pacific Coast Ranges.
The Pacific Coast Ranges are part of the North American Cordillera (sometimes known as the Western Cordillera, or in Canada, as the Pacific Cordillera and/or the Canadian Cordillera), which includes the Rocky Mountains, Columbia Mountains, Interior Mountains, the Interior Plateau, Sierra Nevada Mountains, the Great Basin mountain ranges, and other ranges and various plateaus and basins.
The Pacific Coast Ranges designation, however, only applies to the Western System of the Western Cordillera, which comprises the Saint Elias Mountains, Coast Mountains, Insular Mountains, Olympic Mountains, Cascade Range, Oregon Coast Range, California Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and the Sierra Madre Occidental.
Read more about Pacific Coast Ranges: Other Uses, Geography, Major Ranges, Major Icefields
Famous quotes containing the words pacific and/or coast:
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“How happy is the sailor’s life,
From coast to coast to roam;
In every port he finds a wife,
In every land a home.”
—Isaac Bickerstaffe (c. 1735–1812)