Portal:Pacific Northwest

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The Pacific Northwest Portal

P:PNW

The Pacific Northwest (PNW), sometimes referred to as Cascadia, is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common conception includes the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, northern Idaho, and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Some broader conceptions reach north into Alaska and Yukon, south into northern California, and east into western Montana. Other conceptions may be limited to the coastal areas west of the Cascade and Coast mountains.

The Northwest Coast is the coastal region of the Pacific Northwest, and the Northwest Plateau (also commonly known as "the Interior" in British Columbia), is the inland region. The term "Pacific Northwest" should not be confused with the Northwest Territory (also known as the Great Northwest, a historical term in the United States) or the Northwest Territories of Canada. The region is sometimes referred to as Cascadia, which, depending on the borders, may or may not be the same thing as the Pacific Northwest.

The region's largest metropolitan areas are Greater Seattle, Washington, with 4 million people; Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, with 2.84 million people; and Greater Portland, Oregon, with 2.5 million people.

The culture of the Pacific Northwest is influenced by the Canada–United States border, which the United States and the United Kingdom established at a time when the region's inhabitants were composed mostly of indigenous peoples. Two sections of the border—one along the 49th parallel south of British Columbia and one between the Alaska Panhandle and northern British Columbia—have left a great impact on the region. According to Canadian historian Ken Coates, the border has not merely influenced the Pacific Northwest—rather, "the region's history and character have been determined by the boundary". (Full article...)

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The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest. BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to construct facilities necessary to transmit that power. Congress has since designated Bonneville to be the marketing agent for power from all of the federally owned hydroelectric projects in the Pacific Northwest. Bonneville is one of four regional Federal power marketing agencies within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). (Full article...)

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John Albert Kitzhaber (born March 5, 1947) is an American former politician and physician who served as governor of Oregon from 1995 to 2003 and again from 2011 to 2015. In February 2015, shortly after beginning his fourth term, Kitzhaber resigned from office and was replaced by Secretary of State Kate Brown. A member of the Democratic Party, Kitzhaber was the longest-serving governor in the state's history.

A physician in Roseburg, Kitzhaber was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1978. After one term, he won an Oregon Senate seat in 1980, serving three terms, until 1993. He was Senate President from 1985 to 1993. In 1994, he was elected governor of Oregon, defeating his Republican opponent Denny Smith. He was reelected by a wide margin in 1998 and left office in January 2003. In 2010, Kitzhaber ran for governor again and narrowly defeated his Republican opponent Chris Dudley. He was reelected in 2014, to become Oregon's longest serving governor. (Full article...)

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Largest cities of the Pacific Northwest

City	State/Province	Population	Metropolitan Area	Urban Area
Seattle	Washington	704,000^[1]	3,905,026^[2]	3,059,393^[3]
Portland	Oregon	658,347^[2]	2,753,168^[2]	1,849,898^[3]
Vancouver	British Columbia	631,486^[4]	2,737,698^[5]	2,264,823^[6]
Surrey	British Columbia	598,530^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Burnaby	British Columbia	257,926^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Boise	Idaho	226,570^[7]	691,423^[2]	349,684^[3]
Spokane	Washington	222,081^[1]	573,493 ^[8]^[9]	486,225^[3]
Richmond	British Columbia	216,046^[4]	^{[n 1]}	^{[n 1]}
Tacoma	Washington	198,397^[1]	^{[n 2]}	^{[n 2]}
Vancouver	Washington	175,673^[1]	^{[n 3]}	^{[n 3]}

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The following are images from various Pacific Northwest-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Lumen Field, home of Seattle Seahawks and Sounders FC (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 2The Golden Hinde on Vancouver Island was formed by erosion carving into basalt. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 3Image of the Juan de Fuca Plate that produced the magnitude 8.7–9.2 Cascadia earthquake in 1700. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 4Map of the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt centers. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 5The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens (from Cascade Range)
Image 6A map of the Snake River Plain, showing its smooth topography (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 7Map of the Anahim Volcanic Belt centers. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 8The Cascades range (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 9U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes' 1841 Map of the Oregon Territory from "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition". Philadelphia: 1845 (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 10Mount Edziza, a large shield volcano in northwestern British Columbia (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 11A man in Portland, Oregon with Cascadian flag on International Workers' Day, 2012 (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 12The immense floods created channels that are presently dry, such as the Drumheller Channels (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 13HMS Discovery was the lead ship used by George Vancouver (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 14The Boundary Trail section of the PNT in Horseshoe Basin, Pasayten Wilderness (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 15None of the multiple possible definitions of the Pacific Northwest is universally accepted. This map shows three possibilities: (1) The shaded area shows the historical Oregon Country. (2) The green line shows the Cascadia bioregion. (3) The labeled states and provinces include Washington, Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 16West side view of Mount Shuksan in summer as seen from Artist Point in Washington (from Cascade Range)
Image 17Mount St. Helens erupts on May 18, 1980 (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 18Lava Butte, Oregon, erupted roughly 5000 years BCE (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 19Mountain goat on Wallaby Peak in the North Cascades (from Cascade Range)
Image 20Magnetic anomalies around the Juan de Fuca and Gorda Ridges, off the west coast of North America, color coded by age. (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 21Pacific Northwest Trail at Blanchard Mountain in Washington (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 22Geology of the Cascade Range-related plate tectonics. (from Cascade Range)
Image 23Lassen Peak in the California Cascades. Southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range and part of Lassen Volcanic National Park (from Cascade Range)
Image 24The Pacific Northwest from space (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 25Map of "megacity", showing population density (shades of yellow/brown), highways (red), and major railways (black). Public land shown in shades of green. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 26The North Cascades are heavily eroded by glaciers (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 27The Columbia River basalts cover portions of three states (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 28The Pacific Northwest from outer space. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 29Public transportation is used in the Pacific Northwest region. Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system achieves daily ridership of over 500,000 passengers per day on weekdays and the overall transit ridership levels in the Metro Vancouver area rank third in North America per capita. (from Pacific Northwest)
Image 30May 1915 Lassen Peak eruption column (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 31The Columbia Gorge marks where the Columbia River splits the Cascade Range between the states of Washington and Oregon. (from Cascade Range)
Image 32Oval-leaf blueberry on Mount Pilchuck (from Cascade Range)
Image 33The Coquihalla River in the Canadian Cascades (from Cascade Range)
Image 34State Route 302 after the Nisqually earthquake (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 35Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail overview map (from Pacific Northwest Trail)
Image 36The Coast Mountains are heavily eroded by glaciers, including Mount Waddington (far background, center). (from Geology of the Pacific Northwest)
Image 37Mount Hood is the tallest point in the U.S. state of Oregon. (from Cascade Range)

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... that James A. Merriman was the only Black graduate from Rush Medical College in 1902 and the first African-American physician to practice medicine in Portland?
... that John C. Carson built the first sidewalk in Portland, Oregon?
... that former Oregon legislator William Massingill died while attending a boxing match?
... that Earle M. Chiles, a businessman and philanthropist from Portland, Oregon, was also a senator of the board of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany?
... that after serving as President of the Oregon State Senate, Brady L. Adams founded BearFest in Grants Pass, Oregon, which featured playful fiberglass bear statues placed around the town?
... that the flightless suliforme Klallamornis likely went extinct when the volcanic islands it used for shelter along the coast of the Pacific Northwest eroded away into the Pacific Ocean?