Geography of Southwest Alaska

Southwest Alaska includes a huge, complex, and relatively unknown swath of terrain. It is over 500 miles (800 km) from the western Bering Sea coast to Cook Inlet. Although much of the region is coastal, it also includes tens of thousands of square miles of interior boreal forests, swamps, and highlands, and the immense mountain barrier of the southern Alaska/Aleutian Range. The Aleutian Range, part of the Ring of Fire, includes many of Alaska's volcanoes including Mount Katmai, Novarupta and the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, Mount Redoubt, Mount Iliamna, and Augustine Volcano.

Southwest Alaska encompasses, roughly from west to east: the Pribilof Islands, Nunivak Island and other Bering Sea islands lying west of the Alaska coast and east of the Russian coast; the immense combined delta of the Yukon River and Kuskokwim River; hundreds of miles of interior highlands, including the lower and middle Kuskokwim drainages; the entire watersheds of Goodnews Bay and Bristol Bay and other parts of the southern coast, including mountain ranges and great interior lakes including the Wood-Tikchik Lakes, Lake Iliamna, and Lake Clark; the western heights of the Alaska Range, and its continuation southward as the Aleutian Range along the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands. The Kodiak Archipelago, in the Pacific east of the Alaska Peninsula, is the most eastern part of Southwest Alaska.

Southwest Alaska consists roughly of the Aleutians East, Bristol Bay, Kodiak Island, Lake and Peninsula boroughs, plus the portion of the Kenai Peninsula Borough that lies west of Cook Inlet; along with the Aleutians West, Bethel, Dillingham, and Kusilvak census areas. These areas have a combined area of 170,732 square miles (442,190 km²), slightly larger than California.