The Coast Guard has renamed its operational districts to reflect their geographic regions, a move the service says will make its construct more recognizable to the public as well as governmental partners and industry.
The change is part of the service’s Force Design 2028, a restructuring announced in May that aims to increase the size of the service and streamline its organization.
According to Adm. Kevin Lunday, the Coast Guard’s acting commandant, the shift to geographic names is a “critical step” in becoming a “more agile, capable and responsive fighting force.”
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“Under Force Design 2028, we are driving fundamental changes to speed decision-making, improve strategic alignment, and ultimately best serve the American people for decades to come,” Lunday said in a statement July 3. “This initiative underscores our commitment to ensuring that change is lasting and has an enduring impact on the service and the nation.”
The Coast Guard has operated under a numbered district system established more than 80 years ago during World War II to align it with the Navy’s system. At the time, the service operated under the Department of the Navy.
While the Navy began phasing out its numbered system in the late 1980s, ending it completely by 1999 with only the Naval District Washington remaining, the Coast Guard retained its numerical system.
The idea for renaming the districts has been kicked around for several years: In 2018, Coast Guard Reserve Cmdr. James Hotchkiss called the numbered system “obsolete” in an article in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine; and last year, Cmdr. Leah Cole, currently a Coast Guard national security fellow at Harvard University, called for a “rebranding,” also in Proceedings.
Cole said a change would “better connect with and represent the people and regions they serve.”
Under Force Design 2028, the Coast Guard plans to grow by 15,000 members, add a Coast Guard secretary position and several under secretary and assistant secretary posts, invest in technology to support improved operations, and streamline its procurement and acquisitions programs.
Last week, President Donald Trump signed a bill that provides nearly $25 billion to support the service’s growth and procurements of new ships and aircraft, in addition to funding to address the Coast Guard’s nearly $7 billion maintenance and repair backlog.
According to the $150 billion One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Coast Guard’s share includes funding for the service to buy roughly 17 icebreakers, 21 cutters, 40 helicopters and six C-130J aircraft.
The law also allocates $6.6 billion to repair and maintain the service’s shore infrastructure, including depots and training facilities.
Under the new nomenclature, the Coast Guard districts are now referred to as:
- District 1: USCG Northeast District
- District 5: USCG East District
- District 7: USCG Southeast District
- District 8: USCG Heartland District
- District 9: USCG Great Lakes District
- District 11: USCG Southwest District
- District 13: USCG Northwest District
- District 14: USCG Oceania District
- District 17: USCG Arctic District
The Coast Guard has shifted immediately to using the new names both internally and externally and is working to formally make the change in the Code of Federal Regulations, the government’s codification of rules published in the Federal Register.
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