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Columbia River basin


The Columbia Basin is the drainage basin of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. It covers 668,000 km2 or 258,000 sq mi. In common usage, the term often refers to a smaller area, generally the portion of the drainage basin that lies within eastern Washington.

Usage of the term "Columbia Basin" in British Columbia generally refers only to the immediate basins of the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers and excludes that of the Okanagan, Kettle and Similkameen Rivers.

The Columbia Basin includes the southeastern portion of the Canadian province of British Columbia, most of the U.S. states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, the western part of Montana, and very small portions of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. The south and southeastern drainage divide borders the interior drainage of the northern Great Basin. To the northeast the region borders the basins of the Saskatchewan River (Hudson Bay) and the MacKenzie River (Beaufort Sea), and to the northwest the basin of the Fraser River. The Columbia Basin extends from the Rocky Mountains in the east through the Cascade Range to the Columbia River's outflow at the Pacific Ocean in the west.


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