The region is further subdivided geographically and culturally between British Columbia, which is mostly on the western side of the Canadian Rockies and often referred to as the "west coast", and the "Prairie Provinces" (commonly known as "the Prairies"), which include those provinces on the eastern side of the Rockies yet west of Ontario - Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Alberta and British Columbia are also sometimes subcategorized together, either as the "Rockie Provinces" or "mountain provinces" owing to both hosting large swathes of the mountain range, or due to shared socioeconomic factors such as their highly urbanized populations (three of Canada's five largest cities are Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver) and significant interprovincial mobility between the two.

Alberta and Saskatchewan, having once been united as a single territory, are also sometimes subcategorized together due to shared political and economic histories, as well as similar historic migratory patterns from Eastern Europe.

From 2011 to 2016, the fastest growing CMAs in the country were the five in Alberta and Saskatchewan: Calgary (+14.6%), Edmonton (+13.9%), Saskatoon (+12.5%), Regina (+11.8%) and Lethbridge (+10.8%).

[12] Western Canada consists of the country's four westernmost provinces: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

British Columbia adjoins the Pacific Ocean to the west, while Manitoba has a coastline on Hudson Bay in its northeast of the province.

[citation needed] The Canadian Prairies are part of a vast sedimentary plain covering much of Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, and southwestern Manitoba.

The plains generally describes the expanses of largely flat, arable agricultural land which sustain extensive grain farming operations in the southern part of the provinces.

[citation needed] In Alberta and British Columbia, the Canadian Cordillera is bounded by the Rocky Mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

These areas enjoy the mildest winter weather in all of Canada, as temperatures rarely fall much below the freezing mark.

The mountainous Interior of the province is drier and has colder winters, but experiences hotter summers than the more moderate coastal areas.

Lytton, British Columbia, a small town that sits at the confluence of the Thompson River holds the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in Canada at 49.6 °C (121.3 °F) on 29 June 2021,[15] and is regularly referred as Canada's hot spot in summer with temperatures easily reaching the mid to high 30 °C 's (upper 90s to low 100s °F) in July and August and sometimes top 40 °C (104 °F).

[citation needed] The West has been the most vocal in calls for reform of the Senate, in which Ontario, Quebec, and particularly Atlantic Canada are seen by some westerners as being over-represented.

Other westerners find this approach simplistic and either advocate keeping the status quo or may support other models for senate reform.