The
British Columbia Coast or
BC Coast is
Canada's western continental coastline on the
Pacific Ocean. The usage is synonymous with the term
West Coast of Canada.
In a sense excluding the urban
Lower Mainland area adjacent to the
Canada – United States border, which is considered "The Coast," the British Columbia Coast refers to one of
British Columbia's three main regions, the others being the
Lower Mainland and
The Interior.
The aerial distance from
Victoria on the
Strait of Juan de Fuca to
Stewart, British Columbia on the
Alaska border at the head of the
Portland Canal is in length. However, because of its many deep inlets and complicated island shorelines—and 40,000 islands of varying sizes, including
Vancouver Island and
Haida Gwaii —the total length of the British Columbia Coast is over , making up about 10% of the Canadian coastline at . The coastline's geography, which is shared with the
Alaska Panhandle and adjoining parts of northwest
Washington, is most comparable to that of
Norway and its heavily indented coastline of
fjords, a landscape also found in southern
Chile.
The dominant landforms of the BC Coast are the
Insular Mountains, comprising most of
Vancouver Island and
Haida Gwaii, and the
Coast......
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