| abstract
| - The Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada. When people talk about the Rainforest, they invariably mean the tropical one in Brazil, but the Pacific temperate rainforest is the largest in the world by area, and stretches from northern California upwards to Alaska. This part of the Hollywood Atlas is home to magnificent forest scenery, Stargate City, mountain lions, a couple other lions, Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti, log cabins, lumberjacks, and sad-eyed Native Americans delivering Green Aesops. Oh, and crazy people who live in shacks, write manifestos, and send letter bombs. Also expect to see Hippies. Alternatively, we may get a beautifully forested small town, which turns out to be a City of Adventure, usually for the local Kid Heroes, who may subjected to a Horrible Camping Trip. (Note the "rain" part of "rainforest".) This area may also be a Wild Wilderness with very little contact to the outside world because the only city in this region Hollywood seems to know about is Seattle, home of the Space Needle and Starbucks. As home to Microsoft and its founder Bill Gates, and with Nintendo of America down the block and to the left, Seattle is the 'cool' alternative location for tech people (even though the companies just mentioned are actually in Redmond, 15 miles from Seattle). Occasional recognition is given to Boeing. If Oregon ever gets a city, it will be Portland, which is often stereotyped as being populated by hipsters and Granola Girls. Funny thing is, despite Seattle being known as a tech city, Portland is a major center for computer manufacturing, with many Silicon Valley companies such as Intel moving their manufacturing north due to cheaper utilities, wages, and land prices. Another notable company in the area is Nike, whose world campus is in Beaverton, a suburb just west of Portland. Whenever something is supposedly set in Washington, you can almost guarantee it is Vancouver Doubling. However, due to good union contracts it's becoming more common for it to be doubled in Oregon. Also, beyond the Cascade Mountains, vast stretches of Eastern Oregon and Washington are not in any way a rainforest (and the residents tend to be far more conservative politically.) Much of Eastern Oregon is desert or semi-arid, described by some as "the closest you can get to the Wild West and still have cable", while Eastern Washington is largely rolling plains similar to those in Idaho and the Midwest. The latter area is home to the majority of America's apple production, as well as the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, the largest dam in the United States (and at one point the largest dam in the world). Eastern Washington is home to the state's second-largest city, Spokane, whose suburb of Mead is home to Cyan, the developers behind Myst.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)