Magnetic field and charged particle measurements were acquired by the Viking and DMSP-F7 satellites on March 25, 1986, as they traversed the dawn sector auroral zone on nearly anti-parallel trajectories within 40 minutes of each other. Viking was at a geocentric distance of 3.1 Re, and DMSP-F7 was at a geocentric distance of about 1.1 Re. Magnetic field measurements made by Viking at 0850 MLT and by DMSP at 0630 MLT indicated the presence of a large-scale earthward-directed region 1 current and an upward-flowing region 2 Birkeland current. Both satellites observed a third Birkeland current adjacent to and poleward of the region 1 system with opposite flow. This poleward Birkeland current system is about 0.5¿ invariant latitude wide and has a current density comparable to the region 1 and 2 system (~2.5 &mgr;A/m2 when projected to a 800 km altitude). The similarity of the magnetic perturbations observed by these widely separated satellites supports the view that the associated Birkeland currents flow in sheets that extend over several hours of local time and that they comprise a large-scale and stable feature of the magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling system. As suggested by previous studies, we identify the upward-flowing poleward Birkeland current as the ''region 0'' system. Charged particle data from both spacecraft show a sharp increase in the flux of electrons with energy >2 keV at the equator-ward edge of the region 1 current system. Cooler (<1 keV) and more structured electrons were observed poleward of this boundary. We conclude that the transition between region 2 and region 1 currents in these observations maps to the interface between the plasma sheet and a region of low energy particles with the characteristics of the low latitude boundary layer and that the region 1 and region 0 currents at higher latitudes map to this region. ¿American Geophysical Union 1987