Death Valley is a valley in the U.S. states of California and Nevada, and is the location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 ft (86 m) below sea level. (It is often mistakenly described as the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere, but that is actually Laguna del Carbón in Argentina at –105 m (344 ft).) Located southeast of the Sierra Nevada range in the Great Basin and the Mojave Desert, it constitutes much of Death Valley National Park. It runs north-south between the Amargosa Range to the east and the Panamint Range to the west; the Sylvania Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively. It has an area of about 3,000 square miles (~7,800 km²).