Talk:West Coast of the United States

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In practice, however, it is usually used to refer strictly to California.

By whom? Would these people not consider Seattle to be on the West Coast? --Brion 06:13 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

By Easterners who only recognize New York and Hollywood as parts of the United States. -- Zoe

Can you give an example of usage? I'm honestly curious. Is this just "thinking mostly of California", as I might tend to think of Boston-New York-Philly-Washington as "the East Coast" and not tend to think so much of whatever cities they have in, say, Georgia? (Uhhh, Atlanta or something.) But if you asked me, I'd certainly consider Georgia to be in "the East Coast". --Brion 06:23 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

The first example that comes to mind is in the article itself, when it talks about "West Coast Rap". That's the Los Angeles area only. -- Zoe

Well then, it seems the term is used to refer specifically to Los Angeles, not to California! ;) Seriously, if the majority of the population and cultural capital of the West Coast is in California, why would it be surprising that things in California dominate the set of things described as being West Coast? --Brion

Um, I'm not saying it is surprising? -- Zoe

Well, how about 'remarkable'? The current wording implies, to me, that the following dialogue sequence is possible, even likely:

Bob: Well, I was visiting some relatives on the West Coast and...

Tim: What? I thought you were visiting relatives in Seattle. Did you take a side trip to the West Coast too?

Bob: Yes, Tim. I did. Seattle is nice, but on the West Coast they have even better things to see, like the Golden Gate Bridge. It was nice to get away to the West Coast after that dreary visit to Washington State.

which I doubt. If it's simply meant to note that many West Coast things are Californian, that seems a relatively unremarkable fact; if worthy of mention at all, it's certainly worded incorrectly. If something like the above is meant, then I'm darn curious who really talks like that. And if it's just New Yorkers, then we need some NPOV-ing. ;) --Brion

LOL, Brion. No, but they'll probably say "I flew out to the West Coast" (or, more likely, The Coast)", meaning California and probably more likely Southern California. I don't see anything POV about it. -- Zoe

Again, I see this as unremarkable. If I tell you "I'm flying out to the East Coast", meaning the Northeast and probably more likely New York or Boston, are you going to write that "'East Coast' in practice, however, is usually used to refer strictly to New York and southern New England"? It's not a POV issue so much as one of accuracy. The 'usually' and particularly 'strictly' are very weighty and general pronouncements which make no allowance for the simple weights of probabilities of subject matter or variations in regional usage, and I question their accuracy. --Brion 07:00 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

As a native Seattleite, I've always heard Washington and Oregon referred to as belonging to the West Coast--We even have West Coast Hotels here. Now, when someone says they went to the West Coast, they usually went to California, but that doesn't mean that West Coast usually applies only to California. Likewise, when someone says, "I went to France last summer," they usually went to Paris, but that doesn't mean that the Val de Loire isn't part of France. I'm going to remove the sentence, and if anyone objects, she can say something here. -- ShadowDragon 22:36, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It seems pretty basic to me. The west coast is Washington, Oregon, and California. The western coastal states. i've never heard it used in any other way, and certainly not to refer to Alaska or Hawaii... As to the East Coast, perhaps because I am from the west coast, to me I understand it to be just the eastern coastal states, with no real regard for distinguishing between new england and the south. Novium 00:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

When someone refers to the "West Coast" they mean only the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Nevada is never, never considered a West Coast state and neither is Arizona. They are considered part of the Mountain and Southwest regions respectively. Alaska and Hawaii are on their own and are part of no region except for the purposes of the Census bureau. As for "East Coast", yes geographically the entire coastline from and including Maine to Florida is the East Coast of the United States, however when people refer to the "East Coast" they are generally referring only to the portion from Maine to as far south as Washington, D.C. One would not say, "East Coast values are so different from those of the west, I realized this on my recent trip to Savannah, Georgia"; this would make absolutely no sense. When in the west coast states, the Coast would mean that portion of the three states west of the Cascades and the Coast Ranges.--142.161.188.92 08:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

As an outsider/insider with perhaps a more objective(?) POV, I'll toss my two cents worth into this:

I'm Canadian from the West Coast. Obviously not the "West Coast of the United States" as mentioned in the title of the article, but Canadians use the terms "West Coast" and "Left Coast" in much the same fashion as described in the article. However, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona are certainly not on the West Coast, the operative words being "west" and "coast" and the unspoken implication being "of the North American continent". We use the term to describe basically the North American coast between Anchorage and Tijuana.

However, we are well aware that someone in New York might use the term exclusively to mean "Los Angeles".

Steve Lowther 10:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

I have made a proposal to change the colour of the map box, please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. regions --Qirex 05:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

The article says WC is sometimes referred to as AK and HI. ummm... no--Lamrock 09:22, 19 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

It has also come to be called "The Coast", especially by New Yorkers...

Is there a source for this? I'm a New Yorker, and I don't recognize the usage. Omphaloscope » talk 18:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

I can't say that I've ever heard my New York friends use it this way.--Will.i.am 03:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)Reply

This article was clearly not written by anyone familiar with the term West Coast. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lamrock (talk • contribs)

Do you have any specific comments or criticisms that can be useful in improving the article? ^BlankVerse 12:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

I think a lot of people that do not consider Arizona and Nevada west coast most likely live directly along the coastal areas of California, Oregan or Washington. The term "west coast" in a geographically literal sense would basically exclude all regions outside of Huntington Beach or Seattle like the Inland Empire, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, Reno, you name it. The term "west coast" in a non-literal sense would include areas that are very similar. For those that have been between Phoenix and Los Angeles for example will notice that the two cities are very similar (palm trees, gang problems, warm weather, large Hispanic population, huge suburban areas, etc.). It goes without question southern California is kind of the "capital" of the west coast, but if you look at the number of Californians that have influenced the culture in Phoenix and Las Vegas for example it would tell a different story. Many Californians brought their business, families, and way of life to AZ and NV and it is very evident. I think the same goes for Pennsylvania whereas the western part of the start is NOT east coast while Philadelphia clearly is because of the influential culture of New Jersey and New York. B —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.166.46 (talk • contribs)

I have removed the following text from the article:

For certain purposes, all the cities stretching from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico are sometimes included.

Unless "certain purposes" are made clear, including cities outside the U.S. in an article about the U.S. doesn't seem to make sense. —Brien Clark^Talk 05:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm from Vancouver and also understand Tijuana (there's old parallels for obvious reasons, despite the different cultures); the reason is that it's the I-5 corridor and we're at either end of it and ther's a common culture and mutual identity with West Coast (at least insofar as Vancouver/Victoria etc goes, if not maybe tijuana), and part of its "metropole" or axis; we're both "on the border" and isolated from the rest of our country (although in tijuana's case there's a few other large cities isolated with it), even from our state/geograhic area (though it's not a 24hour drive even to Calgary from here as it is from Cabo to La Paz...); as border cities we're part of the US cities'/corridor's economic organism in a big way and our economies are closely tied into it, Vancouver's as much as Tijuana's; by this I mean above-board economies as well as dark-market smuggling and worse of all kinds; this goes back to the booze running of the '30s - Vancouver and Tijuana had major trade/shipping between their latitudes, guess why (other boats would bring it in through the fogbanks...) and it goes back even before that; Vancouver and Seattle have always been rivals as well as partner in all kinds of ways, and are more like each other than they are like anywhere else, with the exception of smaller cities adjacent to them. I don't know how to summarize or allude to it; in practical terms it's really Whistler and Enseneda, which are where the effects of the corridor run out (Whistler is as much a Seattle suburb as a Vancouver one; and Ensenada's as tied in by an extension of I-5, effectively, down to it; it's the twin city thing too, Vancouver, though really paired with Bellingham/Whatcom County, is a sister/twin to Seattle and somewhat to Portland, although Portland strikes me more in the role of Victoria, regionally-speaking within each country, rather than by state/province; Ensenada/Tijuana is of course complementary to Greater San Diego, which as part of southern California is, whether SD likes to admit to it or not, an extension of the Los Angeles/SoCal megalopolis; and so by default is Tijuana, with Ensenada in an outlier area where the good pavement runs out (whistler's not quite all four-laned yet, but by the Olympics it's all three-laned at least, which is all the tough geography can allow). Again, I don't know how to summarize these relationships; for those of us from here "West Coast" is a term we don't confine to Canada, although people from Toronto will tend to mean us when they say it; we've also used it to include "all of us", all the West Coast from San Diego/Tijuana up, as a necessary organism; we shared a history and the freeway and its predecessor tied us together closely; BC has more in common with California/WA/OR in many ways than it does with anything east of the rockies; likewise tijuana is not at all like the rest of Mexico; anyway, that's why whoever said that said that; obviously I'm not the man to come up with a quick summary of it, so there you go ;-). g'nite.Skookum1 06:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

IMO btw there should be someway of indicating on the dab page that, within the mutual West Coasts of Canada and the United States, users of the term mean historically/traditionally mean both places at once, although that's WAY more true of Canadians than Americans, partly because we're so much more necessarily aware of the US; not just the ties; metro Vancouver hugs the border, is integrated with it, and confined to it by geography and historically by shared isolation and mutual dependence; but most americans generally don't think about canada at all, no offense, relative to Canadians I mean, so whether or not Vancouver/Whistler is a part of it; but of course if you stopped and asked them they'd say yes. Point is that the West Coast of Australia is only one place; the "West Coast" in our case or rather from within the regional perspective, is the West Coast of North America, not particularly of either country; as a cultural economic sphere yes, its poles are Tijuana and VAncouver (and their outliers) as they wouldn't, in either case, have existed without the border, and the presence of the American cities in between; it's an organism. In pure geographic terms the article History of the west coast of North America or History of the West Coast of North America, however the capitalization is run on the target there, uses an Alaska to Panama definition; or perhaps only to Isthmus of Tehuantepec which is the boundary between North and Central America, if Central America is "defined off", I can't remember just now but it doesn't stop at Vancouver, or Tijuana.Skookum1 06:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Last blurb: I can't speak for tijuaneros, but definitely in a cultural/identity sense when Vancouverites/Victorians say "West Coast" period and they mean everything down to San Diego, with Tijuana by default if you asked them about it as a necessary blob on the order border like we are here; the freeway is continous through the border, terminating a short while after (rather suddenly, relative to its length, but it's geography/economcs is why).Skookum1 06:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm sure Tijuana and Vancouver are integrally tied to the United States, both being close to the U.S. geographically. However, it seems that in an article titled "West Coast of the United States," they should be mentioned only briefly that they impact the West Coast of the U.S., or not mentioned at all—for the simple reason that they are not part of the United States. Now an article titled "West Coast of North America," or "West Coast of the Americas" would probably warrant much more attention to Vancouver and Tijuana. —Brien Clark^Talk 22:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well, I think it's OK or should be in the article so long as it's a cultural-economic entity that's being talked about, i.e. the "West Coast" as a single organism (which it is, irresepective of the border and national definitions/titles of articles). I just now made a reference on the West Coast page at the Canada section explaining the BC context/usage, which "identifies with" LA-SF-Seattle, and re the general outside-BC Canadian meaning as meaning only BC; there happens to be a British Columbia Coast article, which Canucko purists might insist on renaming; it exists partly because "the Coast" is one of our three or four main subregions (the others being the Island(s), the Lower Mainland - both really part of the Coast, hence the "three or four" - and the Interior (which also includes but isn't usually used to refer to much of the North, meaning "the Far North" closer to the Yukon and behind the Alaska Panhandle). The "problem" is the Wiki parameters on defining things by national categories; like other things cut in half by the border - like the native nations - the national parameters make things a bit difficult when it's non-national terminology that it conflicts with; the same as happened on Talk:Pacific Northwest in varying ways about what is and isn't the Pacific Northwest; in the US in general it tends to only mean the PacNW states, sometimes not including Alaska; but from within the region it's a given that BC, at least its Coast, is part of the Pacific Northwest, as is the Alaska at least as far as Glacier Bay/Lynn Canal. Maybe a statement like "the US West Coast is interrupted for x00 miles by the Coast of British Columbia. Residents of that coastline, particularly those in the urban areas of the Lower Mainland/Greater Vancouver and Vancouver Island/Greater Victoria, which adjoin the border, generally identify themselves as "West Coast" as being the same context that includes Seattle and Los Angeles", i.e. not as the West Coast of Canada as such, but of the continent, and of the particular urban/cultural milieu that is the I-5 corridor. We're not just a big blank spot on the map; in strict terms "West Coast of the United States" is the title of this article, but it should define the standalone term "West Coast", which occurs through it repeatedly, as generally including Vancouver and Victoria and, from what I gather, so is Tijuana on the other end; I don't think a Seattleite or Portlandite would correct me on this. Somebody from Toronto might object though ;-0Skookum1 23:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm from Seattle and I do agree. Even though this page is called "West Coast of the United States", which taken literally would be a region ending abruptly at the international boundaries, in terms of culture, economics, history, and so on, the west coast of the United States is closely related to cross-border regions. From my perspective, the BC coast is especially related. For one, it is in between the 48 contiguous states and Alaska. For two, ..and this is just personal thoughts now.. there seems to be a shared sense of regional identity between American and Canada Pacific Northwesterners. In general it is far easier to find common ground and shared experience between a Seattlite and a Vancouverite than between, say, a Seattlite and a Kentuckyian. Pfly 09:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Further to this, I just made an edit] to West Coast, note the edit comment especially; there are two meanings in Canada, the in-BC context is much the same as the American usage and is more or less a reference to the I-5 corridor from San Diego to Vancouver and inclusive of the culture/mentality and shared history/identity of the region; in other parts of Canada it's a generalization for BC, and tends to exclude the American component, unlike the BC usage....Skookum1 (talk) 17:28, 9 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Is there any reference to support the claim that Arizona is sometimes called West Coast? Living in California, I am quite suprised to see Arizona -the quintessential landlocked southerwestern state- as a west coast state. Signature^brendel 23:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

I thought the same thing, I live in Arizona and here we certainly do not consider this the West Coast. I will now change this page for my said reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TJ13090 (talk • contribs) 01:42, 26 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

I agree with many others here that Arizona and Nevada are not West Coast states by anyone's definition. I have flagged the claim that they are, with "citation needed". If a valid source for this claim is not provided in a reasonable time, I will delete the references to Arizona and Nevada. I don't know what to do about the map, though! --MelanieN (talk) 04:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)MelanieNReply

I notice that the wikipedia article "East Coast of the United States" includes only states that actually have a coast on the Atlantic Ocean. I think the same rationale should be applied here.

PROPOSAL: I propose that references to Arizona and Nevada should be deleted from this article. Any objections? Arguments? --MelanieN (talk) 17:14, 10 October 2009 (UTC)MelanieNReply

DECISION: Since several people have agreed that Arizona and Nevada do not belong, and no one has argued in favor of including them, I am deleting references to Arizona and Nevada from the article. I will leave the map and its caption, since I don't have a good replacement. --MelanieN (talk) 14:49, 13 November 2009 (UTC)MelanieNReply

I've updated the map to remove AZ and NV and to mark AK and HI separately. —Mrwojo (talk) 22:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

The East Coast page has a history section, I think the west coast should have one too, taking some of the history from YOU ARE ALL C MUSCLES —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.59.247.68 (talk) 23:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I propose, not that West Coast be merged into Pacific States, but that Pacific States be merged into West Coast, as West Coast seems far more common a term. That is, unless Wikipedia is standardizing certain state-regions, in which case they should remain separate, as one is a state-oriented designation and the other is simply regional. Aepoutre 22:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Oppose as redundant with History of the West Coast of North America; over-proliferation of terms is what's the issue here; Pacific States (which doesn't include Alaska, I think), Pacific Slope (which includes BC), Pacific Northwest (which includes only part of California, as well as BC and sometimes MT/ID), "West Coast of Canada" is redundant with British Columbia Coast, and so on...what else is there...American Northwest maybe. Shifting sands of irrelevant nationalist perspectives IMO.Skookum1 04:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Opposing merge means supporting continuation of separate articles, supporting merge means getting rid of separate articles and replacing some with redirects to remaining ones. --JWB 19:23, 1 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

Oppose: Do not merge article, pacific refers to states just bordering the Pacific ocean, not Nevada, and AZ. Dwilso 05:00, 19 April 2008 (UTC) ok well i dont even know what a state is and i don't even know where the west coast iss.Reply

How is "Left Coast" insulting? The term is used by people across the political spectrum. No doubt it is viewed negatively by those on the political right, but it is certainly viewed positively by those on the political left. - Jmabel | Talk 18:00, 16 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

This brings up again the idea that "West Coast" is not limited by the border of the United States; "the Left Coast" is an old usage in Canada also, in both positive nad negative usages, and a well-known literary/political periodical, the Left Coast Review, has been around since the 1960s. IMO the title of this article should be West Coast of North America. Doesn't it seem odd to have an article about the West Coast with Alaska and Washington both in it, but not what's in between?? But which has a map showing Arizona and Nevada, which aren't West Coast at all?Skookum1 (talk) 14:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yes, although West Coast of North America is a bit of a problem, too, because Mexico is also in North America, and its West Coast is far less culturally connected to the U.S. & Canadian coasts than they are to each other. Anyway, I think we should kill the remark about the term being an insult. - Jmabel | Talk 01:43, 19 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

I agree. There has been an attempt in recent years make the word "liberal" into an insult but it is not. The term "left coast" is commonly used as a mild joke, invoking the dual meaning of left-on-the-map and leftish in politics, but that does not make it an insult. See Left Coast. A Google search for the term reveals many businesses called "left coast this" and "left coast that", which would not be expected if the expression was an insult to the region. --MelanieN (talk) 21:54, 19 September 2009 (UTC)MelanieNReply

Alaska and Hawai'i are not part of the West Coast. 128.211.198.168 (talk) 07:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

They do seem to fall under the Pacific Coast name, however. Possibly. We need more sources. —Mrwojo (talk) 22:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to see some documentation that Arizona is considered West Coast.

Everything in Arizona hates California (totes jelly). People in AZ fled California. Politics are completely different.

Arizona is not West Coast, hell no. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.177.196.183 (talk) 08:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to see some documentation that everything in AZ carries (or "totes") jelly. I've never seen anyone in Arizona carry jelly, it's too hot there! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.156.136.229 (talk) 20:14, 14 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

Los Angeles totes jelly. --Junkyardsparkle (talk) 04:59, 16 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

At this writing, the second sentence avers

As a region, this term most often refers to the coastal states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska.

There is a source listed, but it's an encyclopedia article (encyclopedias are tertiary sources, occasionally slightly better than nothing at all, but not really adequate to support a claim by themselves), and the article is in any case for "Pacific Coast", not "West Coast".

The claim is logically incompatible with "as a region", because Alaska is not connected to the other three. Finally, the claim is simply false — the term "West Coast" most often (actually, in my experience, virtually always) refers to California, Oregon, and Washington.

I'm going to remove Alaska. --Trovatore (talk) 23:02, 26 October 2019 (UTC)Reply

I support removing Alaska. I've lived in Washington State for more than 40 years and have never heard anyone use the term "west coast" to include Alaska. "Pacific Coast" would definitely include Alaska, but the problem with combining those ideas in this single page is that the links to it end up being misleading when the reference is to either the three west coast states or the Pacific Coast in general. For instance, on the Sablefish I've repeatedly had to remove the link to this page and write convoluted sentences like "the west coast of the contiguous United States (Washington, Oregon, and California)" to clarify that Alaska is not included, as discussed on the talk page here [[1]]. --IGTaylor (talk) 01:03, 9 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

I thought of two additional pieces of evidence in favor of excluding Alaska from a page called "West Coast of the United States" are the frequent use of the term "West Coast and Alaska" such as in the "West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center" discussed at https://www.tsunami.gov/?page=history or the "U.S. West Coast and Alaska Marine Geohazards" discussed here https://www.usgs.gov/centers/pcmsc/science/us-west-coast-and-alaska-marine-geohazards. Second is this Google Trends result indicating that search interest for the term "West Coast" is much higher in Washington, Oregon, and California than in Alaska: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=west%20coast&geo=US. --IGTaylor (talk) 18:18, 9 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

"West coast of the United States" taken literally is any area or state in the west with a coast. this would include Hawaii, Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington.

The term as I see it as originally used and originally applied to California, Oregon, and Washington when they were the only states in the United States of America on the western side of the United States with a coast to an ocean seems to indicate that as other states are added they should be included. I believe some Americans have failed to adapt to the changing world with the use of this tern and some are stuck on the original definition (pre 1959) of just three states. I have experienced people not really considering Alaska as a state at all. I believe looking at the big picture that it makes sense to include Alaska and Hawaii in the definition of The West Coast of the United States. Now I realize that some people think it should only be the contiguous states, but I believe that is a historical view.

Some names as mentioned in the above post include Alaska separately, I believe this is an attempt to be clear and avoid this confusion, not define the term. Is the Google trends result adjusted for population and who has internet access? Sunbelt alaska (talk) 00:56, 28 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Is the total area measure of the West Coast of the United States just contiguous? Because it has a smaller area than Alaska as a whole. --The Unknown Editor... (talk) 01:48, 24 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Is it? The area in the infobox is 1.009msqmi, and the area of Alaska is 663ksqmi. Are you seeing a different number in the article? --Golbez (talk) 13:16, 24 April 2021 (UTC) i confused the sqmi with the km2, my bad --The Unknown Editor... (talk) 01:16, 26 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

  A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Division 9. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 July 23#Division 9 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:48, 23 July 2021 (UTC)Reply