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Japantown, Vancouver — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Japantown is the historic name for the blocks along Powell Street in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, a short way east of the main downtown. The district grew up beside Burrard Inlet as the centre of the city's Japanese-Canadian community. Chinatown lies to the southwest, and Gastown fronts the water to the west. Oppenheimer Park still marks its heart.
About Japantown
Where to stay in Japantown
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Few hotel beds sit inside Japantown itself. Most visitors base in neighbouring Gastown or downtown Vancouver and walk over, since the whole area covers only a handful of blocks near the harbour. The draw here is history rather than nightlife.
A short walk links the Vancouver Police Museum on East Cordova Street, St. James Anglican Church, and the museums of adjacent Chinatown, including the Chinatown Storytelling Centre. Parts of the surrounding Downtown Eastside see real hardship, so most travellers visit by day and sleep elsewhere.
About Japantown
What are the main landmarks in Japantown?
The oldest landmark is the site of Hastings Mill on Burrard Inlet, where Vancouver's timber trade first began. A short walk south, Chinatown gathers the Chinese Canadian Museum, the Chinatown Storytelling Centre, and the Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society within a few blocks. Closer in, the Vancouver Police Museum fills the old city morgue on East Cordova Street.
Science World's dome shines to the south. The Catriona Jeffries gallery pulls contemporary-art visitors east toward Strathcona.
What is the history of Japantown?
Japantown took shape in the late nineteenth century, as Japanese immigrants settled near the sawmill work at Hastings Mill and the harbour. Powell Street became the main street. Shops, boarding houses and a Buddhist temple lined its blocks.
During the Second World War, the government forcibly removed and interned people of Japanese descent, and the neighbourhood emptied almost overnight. Few families came back. The old streets were slowly absorbed into the wider Downtown Eastside, while Oppenheimer Park kept the community's memory alive.
Where is Japantown?
Powell Street runs east to west as the spine of the district, one block up from East Cordova Street. The port lands and rail tracks along Burrard Inlet close off the north side, near where the Hastings Mill once cut the city's first lumber. Chinatown begins just to the south.
Strathcona lies east, and Gastown picks up along the water to the west.
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Updated July 2026