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English Bay, Vancouver — Area Guide & Where to Stay
English Bay is an open bay off Vancouver, reaching from Prospect Point to Point Grey and edging Stanley Park, the West End and Kitsilano.
About English Bay
Where to stay in English Bay
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
The West End puts a stay closest to the water, its blocks running down to English Bay with Stanley Park at one end and the Downtown peninsula behind, which makes it the practical choice for anyone whose days are spent on the shoreline. Kitsilano holds another shore. Rooms there trade the West End's density for a quieter approach to the same bay, while West Point Grey and the University Endowment Lands run further out toward Point Grey.
False Creek marks the other limit.
About English Bay
What are the main landmarks in English Bay?
Siwash Rock and Prospect Point mark the headland at one end of English Bay, and both stand on the Stanley Park side of the water, in the southeastern portion of the outer Burrard Inlet. Point Grey closes the other end. False Creek cuts in as a narrow inlet at the eastern end, a short arm off the shore that runs on toward Kitsilano and the University Endowment Lands.
The bay itself carries no monument.
What is the history of English Bay?
Bays are not founded, and no year attaches to English Bay. The name belongs to open water rather than to a settlement, applied to the bay that reaches from the headland between Siwash Rock and Prospect Point out to the northwestern tip of Point Grey. Vancouver grew around its shores.
What the record fixes is the geography, a stretch of the outer Burrard Inlet whose coasts became the West End, Kitsilano and the other named districts along the Vancouver shoreline.
Where is English Bay?
English Bay opens northwest of the Burrard Peninsula, running from Siwash Rock to the northwestern tip of Point Grey, with False Creek at its eastern end.
More areas in Vancouver
Updated September 2026