Vancouver example essay topic

Vancouver (British Columbia), city in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, on Burrard Inlet (an arm of the Strait of Georgia), opposite Vancouver Island, near the state of Washington in the United States. It is a leading Pacific coast seaport and the main commercial, manufacturing, financial, tourist, and cultural center of the province. The Vancouver area is the third largest metropolitan area in Canada, after Toronto, Ontario, and Montreal, Quebec. Principal products include wood and metal items, refined petroleum, processed food, and printed materials. Vancouver is served by major railroads and highways and by an international airport on nearby Sea Island. Occupying a picturesque site near the rugged Coast Mountains, Vancouver is a cosmopolitan city with numerous large modern buildings.

Among the city's many parks are Stanley Park, which contains the Vancouver Public Aquarium and a zoo; and Vanier Park, where the Vancouver Museum, with a collection of aboriginal art and artifacts, the Maritime Museum, and the H.R. MacMillan Planetarium are located. The Pacific Coliseum hosts the city's professional ice hockey team; professional football is played at the domed B.C. Place Stadium. In 1994 the National Basketball Association (NBA) granted franchises to Vancouver and Toronto; the teams, which will begin play in the 1995-1996 season, will be the first NBA clubs outside of the United States. Other points of interest include the Vancouver Art Gallery, with a collection of predominantly British Columbian and other Canadian art; the Van Duse n Botanical Gardens; Chinatown, containing one of the largest Chinese communities in North America; and Gastown, a restoration of an old section of the city. Vancouver is the home of the University of British Columbia (site of the important Museum of Anthropology) the Emily Carr College of Art and Design (1925), and a community college; Simon Fraser University (1963) is in adjacent Burnaby.

The city supports a symphony orchestra, an opera company, and a number of theater groups. The Salish tribe inhabited the site when the Spanish explorer Jose Maria Narva ez visited the area in 1791. The first permanent white settlement, established around 1865 and subsequently known as Gastown, was renamed Granville in 1870. When the city was incorporated in 1886, it was given its present name, for Captain George Vancouver, the British explorer who had surveyed the region in 1792.

The community grew as a wood-processing center, a railroad terminus, and a port, surpassing Victoria as the largest commercial center on Canada's west coast by the turn of the century. Many new buildings were constructed in the 1960's and 1970's, when Vancouver prospered as a shipping center for trade with eastern Asia. In 1986 Vancouver was the site of Expo '86, a Canadian world's fair. Population (1986) 431,147; (1991) 471,844. Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (1986) 1,380,729; (1991) 1,602,502.