American Cordillera

The American Cordillera is a chain of mountain ranges. It is the western "backbone" of North America, Central America, South America and Antarctica.^[1] It is also the volcanic arc that forms the eastern half of the Pacific Ring of Fire.

The ranges begin with the Alaska Range and the Brooks Range in Alaska and run through the Yukon into British Columbia. The main belt of the Rocky Mountains along with the parallel Coast Ranges of mountains and islands continue through British Columbia and Vancouver Island.

In the United States, the cordillera branches to include the Rocky Mountains,^[1] the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascades and Coast ranges of Washington, Oregon, and California. In Mexico, the cordillera continues through the Sierra Madre Occidental and Sierra Madre Oriental, as well as the backbone mountains of the Baja California peninsula.

The ranges of the cordillera from Mexico northwards are called the North American Cordillera or Western Cordillera in the United States and Canada, and the Canadian Cordillera or Pacific Cordillera in Canada.

The cordillera goes on through the mountain ranges of Central America in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. It becomes the Andes Mountains of South America. The Andes with their parallel chains and the island chains off the coast of Chile continue through Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile to the very tip of South America at Tierra del Fuego. Also, the range may be followed through the South Georgia Ridge across the Southern Ocean to the mountains of Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} "Western Cordillera." Archived 2011-10-01 at the Wayback Machine Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus faculty website Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed June 2011.