page_title: British Columbia Coast
section_title: Major islands
hierarchical_section_title: British Columbia Coast / Major islands
context_page_description: The British Columbia Coast or BC Coast is Canada's western continental coastline on the North 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 965 kilometres 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 25,725 kilometres, making up about 10% of the Canadian coastline at 243,042 kilometres. The coastline's geography, which is shared with Southeast Alaska 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.
caption: Map of Haida Gwaii
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