Where to Stay in Vancouver, British Columbia

What is Vancouver known for?

Vancouver is known as the largest city on the coast of British Columbia, set between the sea and the North Shore Mountains in the Lower Mainland. Its shoreline runs for miles along the coast. The Vancouver Art Gallery and the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art anchor its cultural life, and Science World rises beside the water.

The mountains define the view. Chinatown keeps a long history in the Chinese Canadian Museum.

What are the main landmarks in Vancouver?

Vancouver's landmarks gather between the harbour and the North Shore Mountains. The Vancouver Art Gallery and the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art hold the city's art, while the Museum of Vancouver and the Vancouver Maritime Museum tell its story by the water. Science World stands beside the water at the edge of downtown, and the Vancouver Lookout rises over the centre.

Bloedel Conservatory crowns a hill above the city. The Chinese Canadian Museum stands in the old Chinatown.

What is the history of Vancouver?

Vancouver grew from a sawmill on the coast of British Columbia, and was incorporated as a city in 1886. The first settlement gathered around Hastings Mill, cutting the timber of the coast for markets across the Pacific. Ships came for the wood.

The arrival of the transcontinental railway made the young city the terminus of a line that crossed the whole country, and it grew quickly along the water below the North Shore Mountains. Immigrants arrived from across the Pacific and beyond. Among the earliest were the Chinese communities whose story the Chinese Canadian Museum and the Chinatown Storytelling Centre now record, settled in the quarter east of the centre.

The Roedde House Museum preserves a home from those early decades. Vancouver spread outward from the harbour as its trade grew, and institutions such as the Museum of Vancouver and the Vancouver Maritime Museum came to hold its record. The mill is long gone.

The city it started still faces the sea and the mountains of the Lower Mainland.

Where is Vancouver?

Vancouver stands on the coast of British Columbia, in the Lower Mainland of Western Canada, hemmed between the sea and the North Shore Mountains. The city sits on the flat coastal ground toward the Fraser Valley. Water reaches it on several sides.

The mountains rise close behind the northern shore, sharp against the sky. Beyond the built-up area the coast and the valley open toward the wider mainland.

What is the climate of Vancouver?

Vancouver has a mild, wet oceanic climate, one of the gentlest of any Canadian city. Winters are cool and grey, with long spells of rain rolling in off the Pacific and low cloud hanging over the North Shore Mountains. The summer months turn warm and dry.

When the clear months come, the coast and the peaks stand out sharply above the Lower Mainland. Snow falls on the mountains far more than in the city below.

How do you get to Vancouver?

Vancouver is reached by air, sea, and road across British Columbia and the wider Pacific. Its international airport sits south of the centre, on the flat ground toward the Fraser Valley. Ferries cross the coastal waters to the city.

Highways run east through the Lower Mainland toward the interior, and rail lines that once ended here still cross the country to the coast below the North Shore Mountains.