Cascadia

The Cascadia bioregion encompasses all or portions of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta. Spanning roughly 534,000 square miles, it includes the entire watershed of the Columbia River as far as the Continental Divide, and the Cascade Range from Northern California well into Canada.

Bioregion is short for bio-cultural region: a geographically based area defined by physical traits, including land and soil composition, watershed, climate, flora, and fauna, together with the cultural traits of the people who live within it and act upon it. Bioregions are delineated by watersheds and ecoregions, with the conviction that political boundaries should match ecological and cultural boundaries, and that culture stems from place.

The area in and around Cascadia is more commonly referred to as the Pacific Northwest, yet its biomes and ecoregions are distinct from the surrounding areas. The resource-rich Salish Sea is shared between British Columbia and Washington, and the Pacific temperate rainforests, the world’s largest temperate rainforest zone, stretch along the coast from Alaska to California.

Cascadia was long united by Indigenous cultures, and briefly as the Oregon Country and Oregon Territory, before being divided by colonial powers. It still retains a distinct regional culture that bridges those boundaries. More than 500,000 people lived, hunted, fished, and traded here before colonial contact, brought together through a vast network that stretched over rivers, oceans, mountains, and seas.

The bioregion holds the largest tracts of untouched old-growth temperate rainforest in the world, and its wild habitats still shelter salmon, wolves, bears, whales, and orcas. For the full figures, from species counts to geology, see The Bioregion.

Bioregions exist whether humans are here or not. They form the natural countries of our planet, and within each, place-appropriate technologies and ways of living grow over thousands of years. Watersheds like Cascadia’s transcend arbitrary borders. They are critical to understanding where our water comes from and where it goes, and to engaging every community affected by that question. Creating holistic cultural, economic, ecological, and democratic systems is why ideas like Cascadia matter.

Explore Cascadia

• The Bioregion: facts and figures, ecoregions, watersheds, and the physical shape of Cascadia.
• The Doug Flag: the flag of the Cascadia bioregion, its meaning, and how to use it.
• The Story of Cascadia: how the Cascadia movement took shape and where it is going.

Go Deeper

• Maps and Resources: cartographic tools for exploring watersheds, ecoregions, and the layers that define our place.
• Ecotopia.Today: an interactive mapping project at the crossroads of political ecology, art, science, philosophy, and activism, with cartographic projects and texts by Brian Holmes.
• Cascadia Institute: a site dedicated to learning to tell the story of a place called Cascadia, created and maintained by David McCloskey, one of the first founders of the idea and philosophy.