Pacific Coast Ranges

Malibu Canyon, Santa Monica Mountains The Pacific Coast Ranges (officially gazetted as the Pacific Mountain System in the United States; French: chaînes côtières du Pacifique; Spanish: cadena costera del Pacífico) are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to northern and central Mexico. Although they are commonly thought to be the westernmost mountain range of the continental United States and Canada, the geologically distinct Insular Mountains of Vancouver Island lie farther west.

The Pacific Coast Ranges are part of the North American Cordillera (sometimes known as the Western Cordillera, or in Canada, as the Pacific Cordillera and/or the Canadian Cordillera), which includes the Rocky Mountains, the Columbia Mountains, the Interior Mountains, the Interior Plateau, the Sierra Nevada, the Great Basin mountain ranges, and other ranges and various plateaus and basins.