<p>There was no geography site on Stack Exchange, so I thought the best place to ask about this was in Earth Science: Do we have an estimate for the length of the American Cordillera (the chain of mountain ranges in the west of the Americas, reaching from Alaska down to Antarctica)? </p>

<p>I tried calculating it by using the lengths of the mountain ranges listed on the Wikipedia page, but some mountain ranges don't have a length recorded anywhere. The best I could get was a rough estimate of about 8500 miles, the length of the Alaska Range, the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, the Cascade Range, the Sierra Nevada, the Sierra Madre Occidental, the Baja California peninsula, and the Andes. The Sierra Madre de Chiapas, COrdillera Central, and Graham Land had no length to add, and maps were no help.</p>

<p>Does a record exist for this lengthy range, or did no one ever bother?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-20T02:08:05.213Z
This topographical unit is huge, from the Arctic trough the Antarctic. I have checked the literature and there is very few standard mention regarding this unit as a whole, instead it is more often localized - possibly function of the tectonic processes at hand.  [The tectonic units interacting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Plate#mediaviewer/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg) are quite different in the North versus the South - this may play a part why there is not much reference to the cordillera as a **super-range**.
marsisalie
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-01-27T18:54:55.717Z
@fre0n I understand what you mean concerning localisation--a geography textbook I have mentions the North American Cordillera, which is what spurred me to research on it and see just how long it was. There was no mention of a *North* American Cordillera, only of an American, anywhere I could find. But my main problem in estimating the current length is that there's no recorded length of multiple units that make it up.
Jonathan Spirit
<mountains><geography>
Is there an estimate for the length of the American Cordillera?
Jonathan Spirit
# Is there an estimate for the length of the American Cordillera?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-01-15)

There was no geography site on Stack Exchange, so I thought the best place to ask about this was in Earth Science: Do we have an estimate for the length of the American Cordillera (the chain of mountain ranges in the west of the Americas, reaching from Alaska down to Antarctica)?

I tried calculating it by using the lengths of the mountain ranges listed on the Wikipedia page, but some mountain ranges don't have a length recorded anywhere. The best I could get was a rough estimate of about 8500 miles, the length of the Alaska Range, the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, the Cascade Range, the Sierra Nevada, the Sierra Madre Occidental, the Baja California peninsula, and the Andes. The Sierra Madre de Chiapas, COrdillera Central, and Graham Land had no length to add, and maps were no help.

Does a record exist for this lengthy range, or did no one ever bother?

**Tags:** mountains, geography

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: This topographical unit is huge, from the Arctic trough the Antarctic. I have checked the literature and there is very few standard mention regarding this unit as a whole, instead it is more often localized - possibly function of the tectonic processes at hand.  [The tectonic units interacting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Plate#mediaviewer/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg) are quite different in the North versus the South - this may play a part why there is not much reference to the cordillera as a **super-range**.  
> **username_0**: @fre0n I understand what you mean concerning localisation--a geography textbook I have mentions the North American Cordillera, which is what spurred me to research on it and see just how long it was. There was no mention of a *North* American Cordillera, only of an American, anywhere I could find. But my main problem in estimating the current length is that there's no recorded length of multiple units that make it up.  

---

## 0 answers

