Western United States

The Western United States is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau.
As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term the West changed. Before around 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the western frontier. The frontier moved westward and eventually the lands west of the Mississippi River were considered the West.
The U.S. Census Bureau's definition of the 13 westernmost states includes the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin to the Pacific Coast, and the mid-Pacific islands state, Hawaii. To the east of the Western United States is the Midwestern United States and the Southern United States, with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south.
The West contains several major biomes, including arid and semi-arid plateaus and plains, particularly in the American Southwest; forested mountains, including three major ranges, the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades, and Rocky Mountains; the long coastal shoreline of the Pacific Coast; and the rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.

Geographic definition

The Western United States is the largest region of the country, covering nearly half the land area of the contiguous United States. It is also the most geographically diverse, incorporating geographic regions such as the temperate rainforests of the Northwest, the highest mountain ranges, including the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade Range, numerous glaciers, and the western edge of the Great Plains. It also contains the majority of the desert areas located in the United States. The Mojave and the Great Basin deserts lie entirely within the Western region, along with parts of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts. Given this expansive and diverse geography it is no wonder that the region is difficult to define precisely. Sensing a possible shift in the popular understanding of the West as a region in the early 1990s, historian Walter Nugent conducted a survey of three groups of professionals with ties to the region: a large group of Western historians, and two smaller groups, 25 journalists and publishers and 39 Western authors. A majority of the historian respondents placed the eastern boundary of the West east of the Census definition out on the eastern edge of the Great Plains or on the Mississippi River. The survey respondents as a whole showed just how little agreement there was on the boundaries of the West.

Subregions

The region is split into two smaller units or divisions, by the U.S. Census Bureau:
; Mountain states: Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada
; Pacific states: Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, and Hawaii
Other classifications distinguish between Southwest and Northwest. Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, and the Oklahoma panhandle are typically considered to be the Southwest states. Meanwhile, the states of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington can be considered part of the Northwest or Pacific Northwest.
The term West Coast is commonly used to refer to just California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, whereas Hawaii is more geographically isolated from the continental U.S. and does not necessarily fit in any of these subregions.

State

2020 Census

2010 Census

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Area

Density

Arizonachange|invert=on|7151502|6392017convert|113594.08|sqmi|abbr=onPop density|7151502|113594.08|sqmi|km2|prec=0

Outlying areas

The three inhabited Pacific U.S. territories are sometimes considered part of the Western United States. American Samoa is in Polynesia in the South Pacific Ocean, while Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are in the Mariana Islands in the western North Pacific Ocean. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands have district courts within the 9th Circuit, which includes western states such as California and Nevada.. American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are also considered part of the western U.S. by the U.S. National Park Service, the Federal Reserve Bank system, FEMA, and the USGS.

Territory

2020 Population
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2010 Census
population

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Area

Density

American Samoachange|invert=on|49,437 |55,519convert|224|km2|abbr=onPop density|49437|224|km2|sqmi|prec=0

Demographics

The population distribution by race in the Western United States :

As defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Western region of the United States includes 13 states, with a total 2020 population of 78,588,572.
The West is one of the most sparsely settled areas in the United States with. Only Texas with, Washington with, and California with exceed the national average of. As of 2022, just under half of the 78.7 million residents of the West live in California.
The entire Western region has also been strongly influenced by European, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Native Americans; it contains the largest number of minorities in the U.S. While most of the studies of racial dynamics in America such as riots in Los Angeles have been written about European and African Americans, in many cities in the West and California, whites and blacks together are less than half the population because of the preference for the region by Hispanics and Asians. African and European Americans, however, continue to wield a stronger political influence because of the lower rates of citizenship and voting among Asians and Hispanics.
According to 2022 estimates from the Census Bureau, the largest ancestries reported in the West are Mexican, German, English, Irish, Italian, Filipino, and Chinese.
The West also contains much of the Native American population in the U.S., particularly in the large reservations in the Mountain and Desert States. As of 2022, the West is home to 365,351 Navajo, 109,208 Apache, and 78,364 Blackfeet, as well as 276,082 people identifying as Indigenous Mexican.
The largest concentrations for African Americans in the West can be found in San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, Fresno, San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, and Colorado Springs.
The Western United States has a higher sex ratio than any other region in the United States.
Because the tide of development had not yet reached most of the West when conservation became a national issue, agencies of the federal government own and manage vast areas of land. National parks are reserved for recreational activities such as fishing, camping, hiking, and boating, but other government lands also allow commercial activities like ranching, logging, and mining. In recent years, some local residents who earn their livelihoods on federal land have come into conflict with the land's managers, who are required to keep land use within environmentally acceptable limits.
The largest city in the region is Los Angeles, located on the West Coast. Other West Coast cities include San Diego, San Bernardino, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Bakersfield, Fresno, Sacramento, Seattle, Tacoma, Anchorage, Spokane, and Portland – some of which are dozens of miles inland. Prominent cities in the Mountain States include Denver, Colorado Springs, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Reno, Salt Lake City, Boise, Billings, and Missoula.

Natural geography

Along the Pacific Ocean coast lie the Coast Ranges, which, while not approaching the scale of the Rocky Mountains, are formidable nevertheless. They collect a large part of the airborne moisture moving in from the ocean. East of the Coast Ranges lie several cultivated fertile valleys, notably the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys of California and the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
File:Zion NP20.jpg|thumb|left|Zion National Park in southern Utah is one of five national parks in the state.
File:Big Sur Coastline.jpg|thumb|left|Big Sur, California
File:Mojave vista.jpg|thumb|left|The Mojave Desert covers much of the Southwestern United States.
File:Grandcanyon view5.jpg|thumb|left|Grand Canyon, Arizona
Beyond the valleys lie the Sierra Nevada in the south and the Cascade Range in the north. Mount Whitney, at the tallest peak in the contiguous 48 states, is in the Sierra Nevada. The Cascades are also volcanic. Mount Rainier, a volcano in Washington, is also over. Mount St. Helens, a volcano in the Cascades, erupted explosively in 1980. A major volcanic eruption at Mount Mazama around 4860 BC formed Crater Lake. These mountain ranges see heavy precipitation, capturing most of the moisture that remains after the Coast Ranges, and creating a rain shadow to the east forming vast stretches of arid land. These dry areas encompass much of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. The Mojave Desert and Sonoran Desert along with other deserts are found here.
File:Red sunset twilight in Landers, California, Mojave Desert, on January 2nd, 2016.jpg|thumb|Red sunset twilight in Landers in the High Desert region of California
File:Oregon High Desert.jpg|thumb|The High Desert region of Oregon
File:Feral horses - Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range - Montana.jpg|thumb|Feral horses in the Pryor Mountains of Southeast Montana
File:Great sand dunes.JPEG|thumb|Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado
Beyond the deserts lie the Rocky Mountains. In the north, they run almost immediately east of the Cascade Range, so that the desert region is only a few miles wide by the time one reaches the Canada–US border. The Rockies are hundreds of miles wide and run uninterrupted from New Mexico to Alaska. The Rocky Mountain Region is the highest overall area of the United States, with an average elevation of above. The tallest peaks of the Rockies, 54 of which are over, are found in central and western Colorado. East of the Rocky Mountains is the Great Plains, the western portions of which are generally considered to be part of the western United States.
The West has several long rivers that empty into the Pacific Ocean, while the eastern rivers run into the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River forms the easternmost possible boundary for the West today. The Missouri River, a tributary of the Mississippi, flows from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains eastward across the Great Plains, a vast grassy plateau, before sloping gradually down to the forests and hence to the Mississippi. The Colorado River snakes through the Mountain states, at one point forming the Grand Canyon.
The Colorado River is a major source of water in the Southwest and many dams, such as the Hoover Dam, form reservoirs along it. So much water is drawn for drinking water throughout the West and irrigation in California that in most years, water from the Colorado River no longer reaches the Gulf of California. The Columbia River, the largest river in volume flowing into the Pacific Ocean from North America, and its tributary, the Snake River, water the Pacific Northwest. The Platte runs through Nebraska and was known for being a mile wide but only a half-inch deep. The Rio Grande forms the border between Texas and Mexico before turning due north and splitting New Mexico in half.
According to the United States Coast Guard, "The Western Rivers System consists of the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Cumberland, Arkansas, and White Rivers and their tributaries, and certain other rivers that flow towards the Gulf of Mexico." The Ohio River portion of the system includes parts of several Atlantic coastal states, from Georgia to New York.