The West Coast of the United States has an oceanic climate in its Northwestern, Northern, and Eastern edge towards the U.S.-Canada border, but from Northern California, towards the U.S.-Mexico border the climate is mediterranean. Later, Spanish, British, French, Russian, and American explorers and settlers began colonizing the area. They developed various languages and established trade routes. Īlaska Natives, indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, and California indigenous peoples eventually descended from the Paleo-Indians. Between 16,500 BCE and 13,500 BCE (18,500–15,500 years ago), ice-free corridors developed along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America and possibly by sea. Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska. The history of the West Coast begins with the arrival of the earliest known humans of the Americas, Paleo-Indians, crossing the Bering Strait from Eurasia into North America over a land bridge, Beringia, that existed between 45,000 BCE and 12,000 BCE (47,000–14,000 years ago). See also: Settlement of the Americas, History of Mesoamerica, and Native Americans in the United States from Washington to California." However, Macmillan Dictionary provides a less specific definition as "the western coast of the U.S., along the Pacific Ocean." As for the Cambridge Dictionary, the West Coast is "the area of the Pacific coast in the U.S. Lexico restricts the West Coast's definition to "the western seaboard of the U.S. Several dictionaries offer different definitions of the West Coast.
Although the encyclopedia acknowledges the inclusion of Hawaii in some capacity as part of the region, the editors wrote that "it has little in common geologically with the mainland states." Encyclopædia Britannica refers to the North American region as part of the Pacific Coast, including Alaska and British Columbia. For census purposes, Hawaii is part of the West Coast, along with the other four states.
Under most circumstances, however, the term encompasses the three contiguous states and Alaska, as they are all located in North America. There are conflicting definitions of which states comprise the West Coast of the United States, but the West Coast always includes California, Oregon, and Washington as part of that definition.
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