Pacific Coast Ranges

Pacific Coast Ranges
Canadian Coast Range, Whistler, British Columbia
Highest point
Peak	Mount Logan
Elevation	5,959 m (19,551 ft)
Dimensions
Length	3,800 mi (6,100 km)
Geography
Countries	United States, Canada and Mexico
Parent range	North American Cordillera

The Pacific Coast Ranges (officially gazetted as the Pacific Mountain System in the United States but referred to as the Pacific Coast Ranges), are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico.

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.

The term Coast Range is used by the United States Geological Survey to refer only to the ranges south from the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Washington to the California-Mexico border; and only the ranges west of Puget Sound, the Willamette Valley, the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys or 'California Central Valley' (thereby excluding the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges), and the Mojave (High) and Sonoran (Low) Deserts. i.e. the Pacific Border province. The same term is used informally in Canada to refer to the Coast Mountains and adjoining inland ranges such as the Hazelton Mountains, and sometimes also the Saint Elias Mountains.