Columbia Country refers to the upper basin of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

in the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

of British Columbia. It includes a smaller region known as the Columbia Valley, near the river's headwaters at Columbia Lake in the

Rocky Mountain Trench The Rocky Mountain Trench, also known as the Valley of a Thousand Peaks or simply the Trench, is a large valley on the western side of the northern part of North America's Rocky Mountains. The Trench is both visually and cartographically a s ...

, as well as the Big Bend of that river, now mostly inundated by Kinbasket Lake and Revelstoke Lake. The area has no precisely defined boundaries, but conventionally Columbia Country encompasses the region upstream of Revelstoke, as the Arrow Lakes are generally referred to as a region in their own right, or as part of the West Kootenay. The lower Columbia, around the cities of Castlegar and Trail, is generally considered part of the West Kootenay, not the Columbia Country.

Usages

References to Columbia Country appears in the names of "twinned" region names like Columbia-Kootenay or Columbia-Shuswap. The former refers to the East Kootenay, the latter to the Revelstoke- Big Bend region, plus perhaps Golden.

Usages

See also