High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon Question, arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both the United Kingdom and the United States had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region as well as residual claims from treaties with Russia and Spain. The British knew the region as the Columbia District, a fur-trading division of the Hudson's Bay Company, while Americans referred to it as the Oregon Country. The broadest definition of the disputed region was defined by the following: west of the Continental Divide, north of the 42nd parallel north, and south of the parallel 54°40 north.