Bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by Washington, on the south by California, on the east by Idaho, and on the southeast by Nevada, Oregon, nicknamed Beaver State, has as capital city Salem, founded alongside the Willamette River in 1842. Its largest city is Portland, located near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers. Oregon's landscape is diverse, with a windswept Pacific coastline; a volcano-studded Cascade Range; abundant bodies of water in and west of the Cascades; dense evergreen, mixed, and deciduous forests at lower elevations; and a high desert sprawling across much of its east all the way to the Great Basin.
Read more »