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The Basin and Range Province is a vast physiographic region covering much of the inland Western United States and northwestern Mexico. It is defined by unique basin and range topography , characterized by abrupt changes in elevation, alternating between narrow faulted mountain chains and flat arid valleys or basins.
The physiographic regions of the contiguous United States comprise 8 divisions, 25 provinces, and 85 sections. [1] The system dates to Nevin Fenneman's report Physiographic Divisions of the United States, published in 1916. [2] [3] The map was updated and republished by the Association of American Geographers in 1928. [4]
The Great Basin physiographic section is a geographic division of the Basin and Range Province defined by Nevin Fenneman in 1931. [6] The United States Geological Survey adapted Fenneman's scheme in their Physiographic division of the United States. [7] The "section" is somewhat larger than the hydrographic definition.
The Basin and Range Province includes much of western North America. In the United States, it is bordered on the west by the eastern fault scarp of the Sierra Nevada and spans over 500 miles (800 km) to its eastern border marked by the Wasatch Fault, the Colorado Plateau and the Rio Grande Rift.
The term "United States," when used in the geographic sense, refers to the contiguous United States (sometimes referred to as the Lower 48, including the District of Columbia not as a state), Alaska, Hawaii, the five insular territories of Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and minor outlying possessions. [1]
The Intermountain West has a basin and range and plateau topography. Some of the region's rivers reach the Pacific Ocean, such as the Columbia River and Colorado River.Other regional rivers and streams are in endorheic basins and cannot reach the sea, such as the Walker River and Owens River.
View of the Basin and Range Province from space. The Basin and Range Province is the most well known example of basin and range topography. Clarence Dutton compared the many narrow parallel mountain ranges that distinguish the unique topography of the Basin and Range to an "army of caterpillars crawling northward." [5]
U.S. Census Bureau regions and divisions. Since 1950, the United States Census Bureau defines four statistical regions, with nine divisions. [1] [2] The Census Bureau region definition is "widely used... for data collection and analysis", [3] and is the most commonly used classification system.