The needles of Western White Pine lack white stripes on their dorsal surface, but these lines are present in Sugar Pine.
White lines are present on the ventral surfaces of both species.
Mature trees are common to 100 feet tall and 36 inches in diameter and old trees sometimes reach up to 200 feet and 70 inches in diameter. Along the west coast, the species grows on Vancouver Island, in adjacent British Columbia, southward through Washington and Oregon, and in the Cascade Mountains. It is also found in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon and northern California, in the Sierra Nevada of California, and near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Isolated populations are found as far east as Glacier National Park, Montana. It attains its greatest size and reaches its best stand and commercial development in the Inland Empire, which includes northern Idaho and adjacent sections of Montana, Washington, and British Columbia.