The Pacific Northwest (PNW), also referred to as Cascadia, is a bi-national geographic and cultural region in Western North America defined by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains and namesake Cascade Range to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common conception includes the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Some broader conceptions reach north into the Alaska Panhandle 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 (known simply 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's largest metropolitan areas are Greater Seattle, Washington, with 4 million people; Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, with 3.4 million people; Greater Portland, Oregon, with 2.5 million people; the Boise, Idaho metropolitan area with 845,877 people, and the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene combined statistical area with 793,285 people.
The culture of the Pacific Northwest is influenced by the Canada–United States border, which had been 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".
Definitions of the "Pacific Northwest" region vary, and even residents of the region do not agree on the exact boundary. The most common conception includes the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Broader definitions of the region have included the U.S. states of Alaska and parts of the states of California, Montana, and Wyoming, and the Canadian territory of Yukon.
Definitions based on the historic Oregon Country reach east to the Continental Divide, thus including all of western Montana and western Wyoming. Sometimes, the Pacific Northwest is defined as being the Northwestern United States specifically, excluding Canada.
The Pacific Northwest has been occupied by a diverse array of indigenous peoples for millennia. The Pacific Coast is seen by some scholars as a major coastal migration route in the settlement of the Americas by late Pleistocene peoples moving from northeast Asia into the Americas.
The coastal migration hypothesis has been bolstered by findings such as the report that the sediments in the Port Eliza Cave on Vancouver Island indicate the possibility of survivable climate as far back as 16 kya (16,000 years ago) in the area, while the continental ice sheets were nearing their maximum extent. Other evidence for human occupation dating back as much as 14.5 kya (14,500 years ago) is emerging from Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon as of 2008. However, despite such research, the coastal migration hypothesis is still subject to considerable debate.
Due in part to the richness of Pacific Northwest Coast and river fisheries, some of the indigenous peoples developed complex sedentary societies, while remaining hunter-gatherers. The Pacific Northwest Coast is one of the few places where politically complex hunter-gatherers evolved and survived to historic contacts, and therefore has been vital for anthropologists and archaeologists seeking to understand how complex hunter and gatherer societies function. When Europeans first arrived on the Northwest Coast, they found one of the world's most complex hunting and fishing societies, with large sedentary villages, large houses, systems of social rank and prestige, extensive trade networks, and many other factors more commonly associated with societies based on domesticated agriculture. In the interior of the Pacific Northwest, the indigenous peoples, at the time of European contact, had a diversity of cultures and societies. Some areas were home to mobile and egalitarian societies. Others, especially along major rivers such as the Columbia and Fraser, had very complex, affluent, sedentary societies rivaling those of the coast.
In British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, the Haida and Tlingit erected large and elaborately carved totem poles that have become iconic of Pacific Northwest artistic traditions. Throughout the Pacific Northwest, thousands of indigenous people live, and some continue to practice their rich cultural traditions, "organizing their societies around cedar and salmon".
Sailing for the Spanish Crown,
Portuguese navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became in 1542 the first European to explore the west coast of today's United States and reached as far as Punta del Año Nuevo, north of Monterrey. Bartolomé Ferrer continued on and may have reached as far north as the Rogue River on the Oregon coast.
By 1579, English captain and erstwhile privateer Francis Drake sailed up the west coast of North America during the course of his circumnavigation undertaking. Drake may have reached as far North as 48N and may have conducted some preliminary assessments of the western entry channels to the Northwest Passage under royal secrecy order. He then headed back south to land, to careen the ship, to rest and to continue on the undertaking. Drake and his crew eventually found a protected cove where they landed, in either the Pacific Northwest or Northern California. Contacts with a local indigenous population were established over the course of several weeks. While ashore, Drake claimed the area for Queen Elizabeth I as Nova Albion or New Albion. Various theories regarding the landing location of New Albion in the northern Pacific have been proposed, including the one recognized by the United States National Historic Landmark and California Historical Landmarks at Point Reyes National Seashore.
By 1589, Ortelius was publishing the Maris Pacifici first ever Pacific map featuring on the west coast of North-America a first ever representation of two major coastline features: the mouth of the Columbia River identified as "Rio Grande" and the delta of the Fraser River labeled "Baia de las isleas".
Juan de Fuca, a Greek captain sailing for the Crown of Spain, supposedly found the Strait of Juan de Fuca around 1592. The strait was named for him, but whether he was the first European to discover it has long been questioned.
During the early 1740s, Imperial Russia sent the Danish-born Russian Vitus Bering to the region. By the late 18th century and into the mid-19th century, Russian settlers had established several posts and communities on the northwest Pacific coast, eventually reaching as far south as Fort Ross, California. The Russian River was named after this local presence and three ranch outposts located alongside.
In 1774, the viceroy of New Spain sent Spanish navigator Juan Pérez in the ship Santiago to the Pacific Northwest. Peréz made landfall on Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) on July 18, 1774. The northernmost latitude he reached was 54°40′ N. This was followed, in 1775, by another Spanish expedition, under the command of Bruno de Heceta and including Juan Peréz and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra as officers. On July 14, 1775, they landed on the Olympic Peninsula near the mouth of the Quinault River. On August 17, 1775, Heceta, returning south, sighted the mouth of the Columbia River and named it Bahia de la Asunción. While Heceta sailed south, Quadra continued north in the expedition's second ship, Sonora, reaching Alaska, at 59° N. In 1778 English mariner Captain James Cook visited Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island and also voyaged as far as Prince William Sound.