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Vancouver

City in CanadaVancouver sits on the Burrard Peninsula in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, between Burrard Inlet to the north and the Fraser River to the south. To the west, Vancouver Island shields the Strait of Georgia from the open Pacific.

What it's known for

The Port of Vancouver is the largest and busiest port in Canada. Film studios in and around the city have made it one of North America's biggest film production centres, with the nickname 'Hollywood North', and it hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics together with Whistler.

Fun facts

  1. The city was named in honour of George Vancouver and was incorporated on 6 April 1886, the same year the first transcontinental train arrived.
  2. Vancouver grew out of Gastown, a settlement that formed around a tavern opened by 'Gassy Jack' in 1867.
  3. The environmental group Greenpeace was founded in Vancouver.

Finding it on the globe

Go to the south-west corner of mainland Canada on the Pacific coast: Vancouver is just north of the US border, about 190 km north of Seattle.

Easy to mix up

Vancouver is not on Vancouver Island, and it is not the capital of British Columbia: that is Victoria, on the island's southern tip. Canada's capital is Ottawa.

Sources: Wikipedia: Vancouver, Wikipedia: Victoria, British Columbia, Wikipedia: Ottawa