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Vancouver. / 49.26083°N 123.11389°W / 49.26083; -123.11389. Vancouver ( / vænˈkuːvər / ⓘ van-KOO-vər) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016.
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Vancouver city skyline view Vancouver high-rises often sit...
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Vancouver (/ v æ n ˈ k uː v ər / ⓘ van-KOO-vər) is a city on...
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Vancouver, city, southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is the major urban centre of western Canada and the focus of one of the country’s most populous metropolitan regions. Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet (an arm of the Strait of Georgia) to the north and the Fraser River delta to the south, opposite Vancouver Island. The city is just nort...
The region had long been inhabited by several Native American (First Nations) peoples when a trading post, Fort Langley, was set up by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1827 near the mouth of the Fraser River. Few people of European descent lived in the area until the late 1850s, when the town of New Westminster (now a suburb of Vancouver) was established near the site of the original fort (in 1839 the fort itself had been relocated a little farther upstream). Thousands of miners, mostly from California, flooded into the region in the 1860s, attracted by the gold rush in the Cariboo Mountains to the northeast. Besides the Scottish, who were very influential in Vancouver’s early years, Americans had a notable impact on the city. The suggestion to name it Vancouver was made by an American, William Van Horne, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. And the city’s most-often elected mayor (nine nonconsecutive terms from 1919 to 1933), L.D. Taylor, was originally from the United States. Moreover, the first important industry in the area, a sawmill on Burrard Inlet, was owned by an American. Finally, the first major industry not reliant on local natural resources, a still-active sugar refinery, was started by an American.
Vancouver was originally a small sawmilling settlement, called Granville in the 1870s. It was incorporated as a city in April 1886 (just before it became the western terminus of the first trans-Canada railway, the Canadian Pacific) and was renamed to honour the English navigator George Vancouver, of the Royal Navy, who had explored and surveyed the coast in 1792. A disastrous fire just two months after incorporation destroyed the city in less than an hour. The city recovered, however, to become a prosperous port, aided in part by the opening of the Panama Canal (1914), which made it economically feasible to export grain and lumber from Vancouver to the east coast of the United States and to Europe. In 1929 two large suburbs to the south, Point Grey and South Vancouver, amalgamated with Vancouver, and its metropolitan area became the third most populous in Canada. By the 1930s Vancouver was Canada’s major Pacific coast port. After World War II it developed into Canada’s main business hub for trade with Asia and the Pacific Rim.
Nestled among snow-capped mountains on an ocean inlet, Vancouver has one of the most picturesque settings of any city in the world. In his 1792 journal, Captain Vancouver wrote:
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To describe the beauties of this region will on some future occasion be a very grateful task to the pen of a skilled panegyrist. The serenity of the climate, the innumerable pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, requires only to be enriched by the industry of man with villages, mansions, cottages, and other buildings.
Its climate is marked by mild wet winters and moderately warm summers. Temperatures range from highs in the low 70s F (about 22 °C) in August to lows in the low 30s F (about 0.8 °C) in December. The city’s proximity to the water and to mountains results in constantly changing weather conditions. Rainfall is heavy in November and December, with an average of about 7 inches (about 180 mm) in both months.
The city is the industrial, commercial, and financial heart of British Columbia, with trade and transportation as basic components of its economy. Its ice-free deepwater port (on Burrard Inlet), Canada’s largest, has extensive docks and grain elevator facilities; it handles freighters, a fishing fleet, and some ferries. Major cargoes include bulk commodities (grain, coal, sulfur, potash, and petrochemicals), forest products, steel, and containers. It is also an important port for cruise ships, with Alaska as their most common destination.
History of Vancouver. The history of Vancouver, British Columbia, is one that extends back thousands of years, with its first inhabitants arriving in the area following the Last Glacial Period. With its location on the western coast of Canada near the mouth of the Fraser River and on the waterways of the Strait of Georgia, Howe Sound, Burrard ...
Vancouver is a coastal city and major seaport on the mainland of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. The city has a population of over 630,000 and is the largest city in British Columbia. Metro Vancouver has a population of over 2 million people. [5] That makes it the third largest metropolitan area in Canada.
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British Columbia. / 54°N 125°W / 54; -125. British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada. Situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, forests, lakes, mountains, inland deserts ...
Feb 13, 2011 · Vancouver, British Columbia, incorporated as a city in 1886, population 662,248 (2021 census ), 631,486 (2016 census). Vancouver is the largest city in British Columbia and the eighth largest in Canada ( see also Largest Cities in Canada by Population ). The City of Vancouver lies on a peninsula in the southwest corner of the province's mainland.
Victoria is the southernmost major city in Western Canada and is about 100 km (62 mi) southwest from British Columbia's largest city of Vancouver on the mainland. The city is about 100 km (62 mi) from Seattle by airplane, seaplane , ferry , or the Victoria Clipper passenger-only ferry, and 40 km (25 mi) from Port Angeles , Washington , by ferry ...
