page_title: North American Cordillera
section_title: Interior System of Canada
hierarchical_section_title: North American Cordillera / Nevadan belt / Interior System of Canada
caption_attribution_description: English: adapted from File:South BC-NW USA-relief.png already in Wikimedia Commons.
context_page_description: The North American Cordillera is the North American portion of the American Cordillera which is a mountain chain along the western side of the Americas. The North American Cordillera covers an extensive area of mountain ranges, intermontane basins, and plateaus in western North America, including much of the territory west of the Great Plains. It is also sometimes called the Western Cordillera, the Western Cordillera of North America, or the Pacific Cordillera.
  The precise boundaries of this cordillera and its subregions, as well as the names of its various features, may differ depending on the definitions in each country or jurisdiction, and also depending on the scientific field; this cordillera is a particularly prominent subject in the scientific field of physical geography.
context_section_description: In Canada, the Northern Interior Mountains are a northern extension of the Columbia Mountains.  They include the Hazelton Mountains, Cassiar Mountains, Omineca Mountains, and Skeena Mountains.
   
  The Columbia Mountains are a designation in British Columbia for a group of four ranges lying between the Rocky Mountain Trench (to the east) and the Interior Plateau (to the west).  These ranges are the Cariboo Mountains, which are the northernmost and sometimes considered to be part of the Interior Plateau, the Selkirk Mountains, the Purcell Mountains, and the Monashee Mountains.
  The Columbia Mountains are classified as being in Canada's interior system, rather than its eastern system. However, the Columbia Mountains are an extension of mountains in the United States that are considered part of the Rocky Mountains, and therefore the Columbia Mountains are often treated as being part of the Rockies.
  The Selkirks and Purcells lie entirely within the basin of the Columbia River, while the Monashees lie to the river's west on its southward course from its Big Bend and are flanked on the west by the basin of the Thompson and Okanagan Rivers.  There are many named subranges of all four subgroupings, particularly in the Selkirks and Monashees.  The southward extension of the Selkirks, Purcells and Monashees into the United States are reckoned to be part of the Rocky Mountains and the designation Columbia Mountains is not used there (the Purcells, also, go by the name "Percell Mountains" in the United States).  The Salish and Cabinet Mountains south of the Kootenai River are essentially part of the same landform, but are officially designated part of the Rocky Mountains in the United States.
  To the west of the Monashees and Cariboos, there are three intermediary upland areas which are transitional between the mountain ranges and the plateaus flanking the Fraser and Thompson Rivers. These – the Quesnel, Shuswap and Okanagan Highlands, are sometimes considered as being part of the neighbouring ranges rather than the plateaus and are often spoken of that way locally but are formally designated as being part of the Interior Plateau. The southernmost extends into the Washington, where it is named by the American spelling Okanogan Highland (and was the first-named of these groupings).
caption: Location map of Columbia Mountains
exif: {}