Pacific States Map
The only Census division that is not geographically contiguous, and the only one that spans four time zones.
Which states are in the Pacific division?
Five: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. It is the only Census division that is not geographically contiguous, the only one containing a state outside North America, and the only one spanning four time zones. Together the five hold about 53.8 million people — two-thirds of the whole West — on 895,287 square miles.
| State | Abbr. | Capital | Largest city | Population (2024) | Land area (sq mi) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | AK | Juneau | Anchorage | 740,133 | 570,641 |
| California | CA | Sacramento | Los Angeles | 39,431,263 | 155,779 |
| Hawaii | HI | Honolulu | Honolulu | 1,446,146 | 6,423 |
| Oregon | OR | Salem | Portland | 4,272,371 | 95,988 |
| Washington | WA | Olympia | Seattle | 7,958,180 | 66,456 |
Two numbers do most of the work here. California holds about 73 percent of the division's population, and Alaska holds about 64 percent of its land. Hawaii is the only state made entirely of islands and the southernmost state in the country; it is also the smallest of the five by area by a wide margin.
The largest cities
Los Angeles is the second-largest city in the United States at about 3.88 million in 2024. San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Long Beach, and Oakland give California eight of the division's ten largest, with Bakersfield, Anaheim, Stockton, Riverside, Irvine, Santa Ana, and Chula Vista behind them. Outside California the leaders are Seattle, Portland, Honolulu, and Anchorage, which holds around 40 percent of Alaska's entire population in one municipality.
Geography: a wall of mountains and everything behind it
Two mountain systems run parallel to the coast for the length of the division. The Cascade Range carries the volcanoes — Rainier, Hood, Shasta, St. Helens — from British Columbia to northern California, and the Sierra Nevada continues the line south, topping out at Mount Whitney, 14,505 feet, the highest point in the contiguous United States. Between those ranges and the Coast Ranges lie the Willamette Valley, the Puget Sound lowland, and California's Central Valley, which is where nearly all of the division's farming and most of its people are.
The Columbia River forms most of the Washington–Oregon border and, with its tributary the Snake, drains the entire interior Northwest through a single gap in the Cascades. The Pacific coast runs from the Mexican border to the Aleutians. Alaska adds the Brooks Range, the Alaska Range with Denali at 20,310 feet, and the Aleutian arc; Hawaii is the exposed top of a volcanic hotspot chain, with Mauna Loa and Kilauea still active on the Big Island.
What the division is and isn't
As a statistical unit it works because all five states face the same ocean and were settled late and from the sea. As a description of anywhere real it strains: nobody lumps Honolulu with Spokane. Everyday usage splits it into the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and often Idaho, which the Census puts in Mountain), California on its own, and the two non-contiguous states treated separately. The regions hub shows all nine divisions and how the informal names cut across them.
Time zones and neighboring divisions
California and Washington are wholly Pacific Time; Oregon's Malheur County keeps Mountain Time to stay aligned with Boise; Alaska has its own zone plus the far western Aleutians; and Hawaii runs on Hawaii–Aleutian Time with no daylight saving at all. Inland is Mountain, the division's sibling inside the West; the other seven divisions sit under the Northeast, Midwest, and South.