Vancouver (redirected from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

Vancouver, city, Canada

Vancouver, city (1991 pop. 471,844), SW British Columbia, Canada, on Burrard Inlet of the Strait of Georgia, opposite Vancouver Island and just N of the Wash. border. It is the largest city on Canada's Pacific coast, the center of the third largest metropolitan area in Canada, and the nation's chief Pacific port, with an excellent year-round harbor. It is the major western terminus of trans-Canadian railroads, highways, and airways, as well as the terminus of a pipeline bringing oil to the west coast from Edmonton. The city's industries include lumbering, shipbuilding, fish processing, and sugar and oil refining. It has textile and knitting mills and plants making metal, wood, paper, and mineral products.

Vancouver's location on hills with views of the harbor, its many waterways, and the nearby mountains of the Coast Range as well as its mild winter climate make it a year-round tourist center. As Canada's main connection to Pacific Rim countries, Vancouver has become increasingly ethnically diverse as large numbers of Chinese, Japanese, and South Asians have settled in the city. Vancouver's Chinatown is second only to San Francisco's.

Simon Fraser Univ. and the British Columbia Institute of Technology are in the city. At Point Grey in metropolitan Vancouver is the Univ. of British Columbia. Stanley Park (900 acres/364 hectares), the largest of the city's more than 170 parks, has a zoo, a marine science center, and famous gardens with outstanding specimens of native trees. Other attractions include the Granville Island Museums and the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site some 20 mi (32 km) south of the city. Vancouver is home to the Canucks (National Hockey League), and Lions (Canadian Football League). An international exposition devoted to transportation, Expo '86, brought international recognition and 20 million visitors to the city, and the city will host the 2010 Winter Olympics. Vancouver was settled before 1875 and originally called Granville. It was incorporated in 1886, after a rail link was built, and named in honor of Capt. George Vancouver.

Bibliography

See A. Kloppenborg et al., Vancouver's First Century: A City Album, 1860–1960 (1978); R. A. J. McDonald and J. Burman, ed., Vancouver's Past: Essays in Social History (1986).

---

Vancouver, city, United States

Vancouver, city (1990 pop. 46,380), seat of Clark co., SW Wash., on the Columbia River opposite Portland, Oreg., with which it is connected by bridges; inc. 1857. An important deepwater port, it has an extensive shipping industry, many lumber mills, and an enormous grain elevator. Power from the nearby Bonneville Dam supplies its industries; manufactures include aluminum goods, paper products, telephone equipment, and sportswear. It was founded by the Hudson's Bay Company as Fort Vancouver in 1825–26 (see McLoughlin, John). After the area was ceded to the United States in 1846, the U.S. army established (1849) a fort there, which remains in operation. Vancouver has an art gallery and a sports stadium. It is also the headquarters for Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Historic attractions include Fort Vancouver National Historic Site (see National Parks and Monuments, table); Covington House (1845), one of the oldest houses in the state; and the Ulysses S. Grant house and museum.

---

Vancouver

City (pop., 2001: metro. area, 1,986,965), southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Located on a fine natural harbour, it originated as a lumber-processing settlement in the 1870s. It recovered from a disastrous fire (1886) to become Canada's principal seaport. Its development was aided by completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1887 and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, which made it economically feasible to export grain and lumber from Vancouver to the North American east coast and Europe. Economic activities include producing lumber and plywood, oil refining, fishing, and shipbuilding.