No major cities
Because somebody put a giant red fence around the area, nobody can get in.
Maybe too hilly or steep cliff coast ( = bad when you want fishing or an harbor)
What they said but also, that’s the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Faced disastrous drop in land level back in the 1700s. Dunked the whole coast into the Pacific
Other comments give a good tl;dw already, but in case anyone wants a video with pictures and examples, Geography By Geoff has done this topic a few times. Here’s one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqyM54CNSsY
I’ll add to all the maybe’s by saying maybe Bigfoot.
This
There is clearly a secret Bigfoot preserve or if you believe scp-1000 a super advanced civilization of hyper-inteligent homonids we colloquially refer to as bigfoot
These places feel normally populated for the geography when you drive through them.
It’s a Bigfoot reserve.
The Northwest Sasquatch tick can grow to 6” in size and kill a person overnight.
Why do you think almost no one lives there just because you don’t know of a major city in the area?
It’s simple logistics, there’s no reason for a major city to be there.
You have Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria in the same region. And if anything is coming to the area it’s going to that region already, and if it’s going farther south you have better ports in Oregon.
Genuinely curious what made you interested in this idea or where it came from
I’ve had similar thoughts. It’s ocean-side cities along America’s West coast, it’s along the same coast as some of the most desirable locations to live in the world (SF, LA, and many cities in between and beyond.) it seems strange that the population moves further inland when you look on a map.
It’s just weird that it’s the West Coast of North America and the major cities (seattle and Portland are well inland)
Just a little further south and it’s one of the mot populated regions (SanFran, San Jose, LA etc)
If you do a quick look at the terrain option on Google maps. I think it’s very obvious that there were advantages places for larger populations to settle around. That particular section of the west coast is fairly inhospitable. Look at the coastal sea floor as well. It paints a fairly clear picture on its own, especially when comparing it to the east coast. Secondly find a timelapse of the how north American was settled as colonies. Stuff mostly came from the east and eventually made it’s way to the west. Railroads are big big part of how the west was colonized and there wasn’t much use for north south railways as things progressed as there was to get things to and from the east.
That locks in or at least reinforces the locations of where major populations can establish themselves.
It’s only been about 135 years since trans Pacific trade started(quick google info please be kind if that’s wrong) in the year 2000 it was still inside the lifespan of a single living human that international trade across the Pacific was really anything at all
And it was with people’s that had absolutely no relation with the European colonists. And they were also very xenophobic culturally and didn’t develop very advanced in deep ocean sailing due to lack of interest.
The old world was east of the Americas, mystery and the unknown was the Pacific. There be monsters there!
So all in all it seem to make a lot of sense that there wasnt much economic pressures requiring big coastal economies until well after established communities and regions developed.
I think Astoria is one of the older major coastal trade cities, but it faltered as Seattle and Portland developed.
And to your point about being inland a ways, they are in much most hospitable regions for farming and agriculture to support a large population
Basically, that’s not where the farmland is (or, when it was first being settled, the fur, which provided the major economic incentives for why that area was settled in the first place). You also have to think about how the land was settled. Settlers from the east used mountain valleys to get around. Mountain valleys in that circled area aren’t easily traversable and don’t go anywhere or lead anywhere useful. Settlers from the southwest used ships and followed shipping routes up the coast. When you consider both these settlement methods simultaneously (and they were in fact used almost simultaneously) you will come to the conclusion that these are some of the most remote areas to be settled in the continental US, and their relative remoteness has a lot to do with why they were settled the way they were.
Meanwhile, from the perspective of a ship sailing up the coast there are few good protected anchorages to use as a sheltered waystation or safe harbor in case of inclement weather directly along the coast, but if you go just a little further you’ll reach good port lands (it’s literally called “Portland”) or Seattle and you might as well journey just a little further to stop there instead if you possibly can. When you consider people taking a long and perilous journey around the horn of South America (there was no Panama Canal) you’re almost at the end of the line, and you aren’t going to want to stop 99% of the way, you’re so close that you’ll push on to the end, and that’s why Portland, Seattle and Vancouver developed where they did. The farmland got worse the further north you went and became increasingly unsustainable so nobody really went much further before the gold rush provided yet another economic incentive to draw people there, but that’s a different story.
If I remember correctly, they talk about it in this YouTube video. It basically boils down to the terrain and it being bad for ports.
There’s a city named “Newport” smack dab in the center of the circle ironically enough.
I was there yesterday. It’s cold AF all year.
Wildly wet. Tons of rain. Geographic reasons for it.
It has been blocked off by a ring of lava
they are populated. gorgeous drive up the coast. did a week in the banana belt near the turn of the millenium. it was a very nice municipality.
