Pacific States

Regional definitions vary from source to source. The states shown in dark red are usually included, while all or portions of the striped states may or may not be considered part of the Pacific states.

The Pacific States form one of the nine geographic divisions within the United States that are officially recognized by that country's census bureau. There are five states in this division — Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington — and, as its name suggests, they all have coastlines on the Pacific Ocean (and are the only American states that border that ocean). The Pacific States division is one of two divisions that are located within the United States Census Bureau's Western region; the other Western division is the Mountain States.

Despite being slotted into the same region by the Census Bureau, the Pacific and Mountain divisions are vastly different from one another in many vital respects, most notably in the arena of politics; while nearly all of the Mountain states are regarded as being conservative "red states", four out of five of the Pacific states (all except Alaska) are clearly counted among the liberal "blue states."

History

The Northwest Coast of the Early and Middle Holocene epoch consists of the Pacific coastline from the mouth of the Copper River in Alaska to the Klamath River in northern California. The forager societies mainly consisted of hunter-gatherers whose most popular source of food was salmon. The people of this time and place lived in planked houses that were small and rectangular in shape. As the population of the Northwest Coast grew, social hierarchies were formed. Leadership was often given to shamans or kin leaders. They also held slaves. A factor in the size of the population was that of temperature. Within the last 5000 years, temperature has fluctuated greatly, bringing on the Medieval Warm Period.

See also

• History of the West Coast of North America

External references

• Pacific Division Labor Statistics Bureau of Labor Statistics