Canada · British Columbia · Vancouver
Chinatown, Vancouver — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Chinatown sits on the eastern edge of downtown Vancouver, one of the largest historic Chinese neighbourhoods in North America and still the centre of the city's Chinese-Canadian life. East Pender Street is its main axis. Herbalists, clan-association halls, and bakeries share the blocks with newer galleries and the Chinese Canadian Museum. The Chinatown Storytelling Centre anchors the quarter's role as a place of memory.
About Chinatown
Where to stay in Chinatown
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Chinatown works best for a visitor who wants to be close to the East Side's food and museums and does not mind a plain, workaday setting. Dedicated hotel beds are scarce here. Most of the quarter is residential and small-business, so many travellers book in adjacent Gastown or Downtown Vancouver and walk over.
The Stadium-Chinatown SkyTrain station sits on the western edge, linking the area to the rest of Vancouver. Come for the restaurants and the Chinese Canadian Museum, and for daytime walks rather than a night-out base.
About Chinatown
What are the main landmarks in Chinatown?
Chinatown's sights are small institutions that hold the neighbourhood's past, not grand monuments. The Chinese Canadian Museum, in the restored Wing Sang building on East Pender Street, is the anchor, with the Chinatown Storytelling Centre and the Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society a short walk away on Columbia Street. The Vancouver Police Museum sits just north, in the former coroner's court.
Across False Creek to the south, the geodesic dome of Science World marks the far shore.
What is the history of Chinatown?
Chinese labourers built this quarter first. Drawn by railway and sawmill work in Vancouver's early decades, they settled the blocks around East Pender Street and made them the centre of Chinese life on the coast. Nearby Hastings Mill, the mill around which the city first grew, defined that industrial waterfront.
Head-tax and exclusion laws then hemmed the community into these streets, and clan associations and benevolent societies grew up in response. The Chinese Canadian Museum records that long history from inside the neighbourhood.
Where is Chinatown?
Chinatown lies on Vancouver's East Side, hemmed by the Downtown Eastside to the north and Strathcona to the east. Gastown is a short walk northwest. To the south the ground drops toward False Creek, where viaducts carry Georgia and Dunsmuir Streets across to Science World on the far shore.
The core runs along Pender and Keefer Streets, with Main Street marking the eastern boundary and Columbia Street cutting through the middle.
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Updated July 2026