Salish Sea in the context of "Strait of Georgia"

The Coast Salish peoples are a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak the Coast Salish languages and Tsamosan languages.

The Coast Salish are a large, loose grouping of many nations with numerous distinct cultures and languages. Territory claimed by Coast Salish peoples span from the northern limit of the Salish Sea on the inside of Vancouver Island and covers most of southern Vancouver Island, all of the Lower Mainland and most of Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula (except for territories of the Chemakum people). Their traditional territories coincide with modern major metropolitan areas, namely Victoria, Vancouver, and Seattle. The Tillamook or Nehalem around Tillamook, Oregon are the southernmost of the Coast Salish peoples.

The Gulf Islands is a group of islands in the Salish Sea between Vancouver Island and the mainland coast of British Columbia.

The Strait of Juan de Fuca (officially named Juan de Fuca Strait in Canada) is a body of water about 96 miles (83 nmi; 154 km) long that is the Salish Sea's main outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The international boundary between Canada and the United States runs down the centre of the Strait.

It was named in 1787 by the maritime fur trader Charles William Barkley, captain of Imperial Eagle, for Juan de Fuca, the Greek navigator who sailed in a Spanish expedition in 1592 to seek the fabled Strait of Anián. Barkley was the first recorded person to find the strait, unless Juan de Fuca's story was true.

Puget Sound (/ˈpjuːdʒɪt/ PEW-jit; Lushootseed: x̌ʷəlč IPA: [ˈχʷəlt͡ʃ] WHULCH) is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound has one major and two minor connections to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which in turn connects to the open Pacific Ocean. The major connection is Admiralty Inlet; the minor connections are Deception Pass and the Swinomish Channel.

Puget Sound extends approximately 100 miles (160 km) from Deception Pass in the north to Olympia in the south. Its average depth is 450 feet (140 m) and its maximum depth, off Jefferson Point between Indianola and Kingston, is 930 feet (280 m). The depth of the main basin, between the southern tip of Whidbey Island and Tacoma, is approximately 600 feet (180 m).

The British Columbia Coast, popularly referred to as the BC Coast or simply the Coast, is a geographic region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. As the entire western continental coastline of Canada along the Pacific Ocean is in the province, it is synonymous with being the West Coast of Canada.

While the exact boundaries are variously defined, the region is generally defined to include the 15 regional districts that have coastline along the Pacific Ocean or Salish Sea, or are part of the Lower Mainland, a subregion of the British Columbia Coast. Other boundaries may exclude parts of or even entire regional districts, such as those of the aforementioned Lower Mainland.

Hood Canal is a fjord-like body of water that lies south of Admiralty Inlet in Washington State that some consider to be the western lobe and one of the five main basins of Puget Sound. It is one of the minor bodies of water that constitute the Salish Sea. Maximum depth is 600 ft. Hood Canal is not a canal in the sense of an artificial waterway—it is a natural feature.

The British Columbia Interior, popularly referred to as the BC Interior or simply the Interior, is a geographic region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. While the exact boundaries are variously defined, the British Columbia Interior is generally defined to include the 14 regional districts that do not have coastline along the Pacific Ocean or Salish Sea, and are not part of the Lower Mainland. Other boundaries may exclude parts of or even entire regional districts, or expand the definition to include the regional districts of Fraser Valley, Squamish–Lillooet, and Kitimat–Stikine.

Home to just under 1 million people, the British Columbia Interior's 14 regional districts contain many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, provincial, and national parks connected by the province's highway and railway network. The region is known for the complexity of its landforms, the result of millions of years of tectonic plate movements. The ecology of the region is dominated by temperate coniferous forest with patches of alpine tundra found atop its numerous mountain ranges.