| ||||||
| Capital | Parksville | |||||
| Largest City | Vancouver | |||||
| Other Cities | Nanaimo, Fraser, Lewis, Kelowna, Coquitlam | |||||
| Language | English | |||||
| Ethnic Groups Main |
White (non-Hispanic) | |||||
| Others | Native American, Black, Asian White (Hispanic) | |||||
| Demonym | Columbian | |||||
| Government | Representative democracy | |||||
| Legislature | State Legislature | |||||
| Governor | Landen D. Ruskin (D) | |||||
| Lieutenant Governor | Dave Mercier (R) | |||||
| Population | 6,194,000 | |||||
| Admission | November 1889 | |||||
| Currency | USD | |||||
| Time Zone | Mountain & Pacific Standard | |||||
| Summer | Mountain & Pacific Daylight | |||||
| Abbreviations | CL | |||||
Columbia (CL) is a state located in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States' West Coast. Admitted to the Union as the 44th state on November 14, 1889, it shares borders with the Canadian provinces of New Caledonia to the north and Alberta to the east, and the US states of Absaroka and Washington to the south.
One of the four states that originated from the Oregon Treaty of 1850, Columbia consists of the mainland (which is bounded by the 51st and 49th parallels to the north and south and the Continental Divide to the east) and Vancouver Island to the west, separated by the Vancouver Strait. Its' location on the Pacific Rim, particularly the Cascadia Subduction Zone, makes the state's population no strangers to earthquakes, which occur rather frequently, though few cause any kind of damage. The last major earthquake, a magnitude 7.3, occurred in the Forbidden Plateau region of Vancouver Island in June 1946.
Columbia's capital of Parksville is located on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island in the Nanaimo-Lewis urban corridor, established by settlers in 1875 for the purpose of avoiding the more seismically active western coastline. The city of Vancouver (pop. 1,670,000) on the mainland is the largest city in the state, eleventh-largest in the US, and contains nearly 1/5 of the state's population within its expansive metropolitan region (which includes the cities of Fraser and Coquitlam).
Counties[]
Columbia is subdivided into eighteen counties, of which, the eight largest are listed below in order of population.
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Map of counties in Columbia.
| Rank | Name | County Seat | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fraser County | Vancouver | 1,700,000 |
| 2 | Salish County | Lewis | 1,200,000 |
| 3 | Nanaimo County | Parksville | 785,000 |
| 4 | Cowichan County | Cowichan | 500,000 |
| 5 | Alberni County | Alberni | 409,000 |
| 6 | Kelowna County | Kelowna | 345,000 |
| 7 | Squamish County | Squamish | 300,000 |
| 8 | Kamloops County | Kamloops | 255,000 |