BC City Guides
Port Coquitlam, with its close-knit charm, may be the Lower Mainland’s best-kept secret. Outsiders often ask locals, “How do you like it in Coquitlam?” But PoCo is not its much bigger, namesake neighbour. Take a walk along tree-lined Shaughnessy Street to sample life in this cosy community. Neighbours swap small talk...
Pitt Meadows might not look like a boomtown to casual observers. With a population of just under 20,000, it’s Metro Vancouver’s smallest city. Farmland and marshes, not condominium towers, dominate most of its landscape. Yet Pitt Meadows’ population grew 7.1 percent between 2012 and 2017—a faster pace than in bustling...
North Vancouver is a community of communities. Bounded by the Capilano River to the west, the Coast Mountains to the north, Indian Arm to the east and Burrard Inlet to the south, it contains the City of North Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver, the Squamish Nation and the Tsleil-Waututh...
Delta is a spectacular place to watch the world go by. From its log-strewn beaches along the Strait of Georgia, you can marvel at some of the five million migratory birds that use the Fraser River delta as a vital stopover on their annual journeys between the Arctic and southern...
Rapid transit is driving rapid growth to Coquitlam. Mayor Richard Stewart credits the Evergreen SkyTrain Extension with driving a flood of new residents to the community even before it opened in late 2016. Coquitlam has been one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the region since 2012, with its population surging...
Langley is a tale of two cities—or, more accurately, a tale of one city and one district municipality. The City of Langley and the Township of Langley happily exist next to each other but are governed by separate mayors and councils. The former is a compact, 10-square-kilometre municipality bounded on...
Many British Columbians have had a taste of Chilliwack, even if they’ve never set foot in the Fraser Valley city. Its nearly 1,000 farms supply milk, eggs, fruit and much more to grocery stores across the continent. And just thinking about the roadside stands selling sweet Chilliwack corn every summer...
Abbotsford-Mission has an enviable problem: figuring out how to build on success. Its economy is projected to grow 2.5 percent in 2018, making it the second-fastest-growing census metropolitan area (CMA) in the country, according to the Conference Board of Canada. That places these two neighbouring Fraser Valley communities just behind...
To call Richmond multicultural is an understatement. Visible minorities of Asian descent are the majority in B.C.’s fourth-largest city, accounting for about three-quarters of residents, Statistics Canada reports. Although you can meet people from 140 ethnicities here, the biggest group is those of Chinese ancestry, who comprise some 55 percent...
The three connected centres of the Comox Valley—the main cities of Courtenay and Comox, and smaller Cumberland—are Central Island outliers because they haven’t really had to reinvent themselves at all. Their healthy farming and tourism industries, plus 19 Wing, B.C.’s only Canadian Air Force base, which employs roughly 1,500 military...