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The British Columbia Coast or BC Coast is Canada's western continental coastline on the 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 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 , making up about 10% of the Canadian coastline at .〔Sebert, L.M., and M. R. Munro. 1972. Dimensions and Areas of Maps of the National Topographic System of Canada. Technical Report 72-1. Ottawa: Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Surveys and Mapping Branch.〕 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. The dominant landforms of the BC Coast are the Insular Mountains, comprising most of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii, and the Coast Mountains, which extend beyond into Alaska and the Yukon. The British Columbia Coast is mostly part of the Pacific temperate rain forests ecoregion as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. In the system used by Environment Canada, established by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), the area is defined as the Pacific Maritime Ecozone. In the geoclimatic zones system used by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests the bulk of the region comprises the Coastal Western Hemlock biogeoclimatic zone, although small areas flanking the Strait of Georgia at the coast's southern extremity are classed in the Coastal Douglas-fir zone. ==Major inlets== The great fjords of the British Columbia Coast rival those of Norway in length and depth but have even higher mountain scenery with a more alpine flavour. Many of the islands offshore are much larger than those along the Norwegian coast, many large enough to have major fjords of their own, as well as their own mountain ranges. This is also of course even more true of the very large islands farther offshore, Vancouver Island and Graham and Moresby Islands in Haida Gwaii, which together form the Insular Mountains, distinct from the Coast Mountains of the mainland. Here are the most important fjords, inlets, straits and sounds, including those important for reasons other than their size, listed south to north: *Burrard Inlet (Vancouver Harbour) * *Indian Arm *Howe Sound *Jervis Inlet * *Hotham Sound * *Sechelt Inlet * * *Skookumchuck Narrows * * *Narrows Inlet * * *Salmon Inlet * *Queens Reach * * *Princess Louisa Inlet * *Princess Royal Reach * *Prince of Wales Reach *Desolation Sound * *Malaspina Inlet * *Toba Inlet *Bute Inlet * *Queen Charlotte Strait * *Knight Inlet * *Loughborough Inlet * *Kingcome Inlet * * *Wakeman Sound * *Seymour Inlet * * *Belize Inlet * * *Nugent Sound * * *Nenahimai Lagoon * *Frederick Sound *Dean Channel * *Fisher Channel * *Fitz Hugh Sound * *Burke Channel * * *Kwatna Inlet * * *Bentinck Arm * * * *South Bentinck Arm * * * *North Bentinck Arm * *Labouchere Channel * *Rivers Inlet *Douglas Channel * *Kitimat Arm * *Devastation Channel * *Gardner Canal * * *Alan Reach * * *Europa Reach * * *Kiltuish Inlet * * *Barrie Reach * * *Whidbey Reach * * * *Chief Matthews Bay * *Verney Passage * *Ursula Channel *Telegraph Passage (Skeena River estuary) *Prince Rupert Harbour Port of Prince Rupert *Work Channel (pron. "Wark"), backside of Tsimpsean Peninsula *Portland Inlet * *Khutzeymateen Inlet * *Portland Canal * *Observatory Inlet * *Nass Bay (Nass River estuary) * *Pearse Canal The many fjord-like waterways between the coast and the islands, and within the archipelago, cannot be fully listed here, and there are many more others that are not so much fjord-like as flooded valleys between what had been mountain peaks many thousands of years ago, when the shoreline was lower. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「British Columbia Coast」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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