British Columbia (BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. With an estimated population of 5.2 million as of 2021, it is Canada’s third-most populous province. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the fifteenth-largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for Queen Victoria, who reigned over the British Empire at the time of Confederation.

The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, and the second-largest in the Pacific Northwest. In October 2013, Greater Vancouver had an estimated population of approximately 2.5 million. Since 2017, the province has been governed by the New Democratic Party, led by John Horgan, first with a minority government elected in 2017 and subsequently with a majority government elected in 2020.

The first British settlement in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, which gave rise to the City of Victoria, at first the capital of the separate Colony of Vancouver Island. The Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) was subsequently founded on the mainland by Richard Clement

Moody and the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Moody was chief commissioner of Lands and Works for the Colony and the first lieutenant governor of British Columbia: he was hand-picked by the Colonial Office in London to transform British Columbia into the British Empire’s “bulwark in the farthest west” and “to found a second England on the shores of the Pacific”.

Moody selected the site for and founded the original capital of British Columbia, New Westminster, and also established the Cariboo Road and Stanley Park and also designed the first version of the coat of arms of British Columbia. Port Moody is named after him.

In 1866, Vancouver Island became part of the colony of British Columbia, and Victoria became the united colony’s capital. In 1871, British Columbia became the sixth province of Canada. Its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu (“Splendour without Diminishment”). British Columbia evolved from British possessions that were established in what is now British Columbia by 1871.

First Nations, the original inhabitants of the land, have a history of at least 10,000 years in the area. Today there are few treaties, and the question of aboriginal title, long ignored, has become a frequently debated legal and political question as a result of recent court actions. Notably, the Tsilhqot’in Nation has established aboriginal title to a portion of their territory, as a result of the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Tsilhqot’in Nation v British Columbia.

British Columbia’s economy is primarily based on forestry, mining, cinematography and tourism. British Columbia also benefits from high property values and being a centre for maritime trade. Although less than 5 percent of its territory is arable land, a lot of agriculture is done in the Fraser Valley and Okanagan thanks to the warmer climate. It is the fourth-largest province or territory by GDP.

Etymology

The province’s name was chosen by Queen Victoria, when the Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866), i.e., “the Mainland”, became a British colony in 1858. It refers to the Columbia District, the British name for the territory drained by the Columbia River, in southeastern British Columbia, which was the namesake of the pre-Oregon Treaty Columbia Department of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Queen Victoria chose British Columbia to distinguish what was the British sector of the Columbia District from the United States (“American Columbia” or “Southern Columbia”), which became the Oregon Territory on August 8, 1848, as a result of the treaty.

Ultimately, the Columbia in the name British Columbia is derived from the name of the Columbia Rediviva, an American ship which lent its name to the Columbia River and later the wider region; the Columbia in the name Columbia Rediviva came from the name Columbia for the New World or parts thereof, a reference to Christopher Columbus.

Geography

British Columbia’s geography is epitomized by the variety and intensity of its physical relief, which has defined patterns of settlement and industry since colonization.

British Columbia is bordered to the west by the Pacific Ocean and the American state of Alaska, to the north by Yukon and the Northwest Territories, to the east by the province of Alberta, and to the south by the American states of Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, although its history is tied with lands as far south as California. British Columbia’s land area is 944,735 square kilometres (364,800 sq mi). British Columbia’s rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres (17,000 mi), and includes deep, mountainous fjords and about 6,000 islands, most of which are uninhabited. It is the only province in Canada that borders the Pacific Ocean.

British Columbia’s capital is Victoria, located at the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of Vancouver Island, from Campbell River to Victoria, is significantly populated. Much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by temperate rainforest.

The province’s most populous city is Vancouver, which is at the confluence of the Fraser River and Georgia Strait, in the mainland’s southwest corner (an area often called the Lower Mainland). By land area, Abbotsford is the largest city. Vanderhoof is near the geographic centre of the province.

The Coast Mountains and the Inside Passage’s many inlets provide some of British Columbia’s renowned and spectacular scenery, which forms the backdrop and context for a growing outdoor adventure and ecotourism industry. 75% of the province is mountainous (more than 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) above sea level); 60% is forested; and only about 5% is arable.

The province’s mainland away from the coastal regions is somewhat moderated by the Pacific Ocean. Terrain ranges from dry inland forests and semi-arid valleys, to the range and canyon districts of the Central and Southern Interior, to boreal forest and subarctic prairie in the Northern Interior. High mountain regions both north and south have subalpine flora and subalpine climate.

The Okanagan wine area, extending from Vernon to Osoyoos at the United States border, is one of several wine and cider-producing regions in Canada. Other wine regions in British Columbia include the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island and the Fraser Valley.

The Southern Interior cities of Kamloops and Penticton have some of the warmest and longest summer climates in Canada (while higher elevations are cold and snowy), although their temperatures are often exceeded north of the Fraser Canyon, close to the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson rivers, where the terrain is rugged and covered with desert-type flora. Semi-desert grassland is found in large areas of the Interior Plateau, with land uses ranging from ranching at lower altitudes to forestry at higher ones.

The northern, mostly mountainous, two-thirds of the province is largely unpopulated and undeveloped, except for the area east of the Rockies, where the Peace River Country contains BC’s portion of the Canadian Prairies, centred at the city of Dawson Creek.

British Columbia is considered part of the Pacific Northwest and the Cascadia bioregion, along with the American states of Alaska, Idaho, (western) Montana, Oregon, Washington, and (northern) California.

Climate

Because of the many mountain ranges and rugged coastline, British Columbia’s climate varies dramatically across the province.

Coastal southern British Columbia has a mild, rainy oceanic climate, influenced by the North Pacific Current, which has its origins in the Kuroshio Current. Hucuktlis Lake on Vancouver Island receives an average of 6,903 mm (271.8 in) of rain annually, and some parts of the area are even classified as warm-summer Mediterranean, the northernmost occurrence in the world. In Victoria, the annual average temperature is 11.2 °C (52.2 °F), the warmest in Canada.

Due to the blocking presence of successive mountain ranges, the climate of some of the interior valleys of the province is semi-arid with certain locations receiving less than 250 millimetres (9.8 in) in annual precipitation. The annual mean temperature in the most populated areas of the province is up to 12 °C (54 °F), the mildest anywhere in Canada.

The valleys of the Southern Interior have short winters with only brief bouts of cold or infrequent heavy snow, while those in the Cariboo, in the Central Interior, are colder because of increased altitude and latitude, but without the intensity or duration experienced at similar latitudes elsewhere in Canada. For example, the average daily low in Prince George (roughly in the middle of the province) in January is −12 °C (10 °F). Small towns in the southern interior with high elevation such as Princeton are typically colder and snowier than cities in the valleys.

Heavy snowfall occurs in all elevated mountainous terrain providing bases for skiers in both south and central British Columbia. Annual snowfall on highway mountain passes in the southern interior rival some of the snowiest cities in Canada and freezing rain and fog are sometimes present on such roads as well. This can result in hazardous driving conditions, as people are usually travelling between warmer areas such as Vancouver or Kamloops, and may be unaware that the conditions may be slippery and cold.

Winters are generally severe in the Northern Interior, but even there, milder air can penetrate far inland. The coldest temperature in British Columbia was recorded in Smith River, where it dropped to −58.9 °C (−74.0 °F) on January 31, 1947, one of the coldest readings recorded anywhere in North America. Atlin in the province’s far northwest, along with the adjoining Southern Lakes region of Yukon, get midwinter thaws caused by the Chinook effect, which is also common (and much warmer) in more southerly parts of the Interior.

During winter on the coast, rainfall, sometimes relentless heavy rain, dominates because of consistent barrages of cyclonic low-pressure systems from the North Pacific. Average snowfall on the coast during a normal winter is between 25 and 50 centimetres (9.8 and 19.7 in), but on occasion (and not every winter) heavy snowfalls with more than 20 centimetres (7.9 in) and well below freezing temperatures arrive when modified arctic air reaches coastal areas, typically for short periods, and can take temperatures below −10 °C (14 °F), even at sea level. Arctic outflow winds can occasionally result in wind chill temperatures at or even below −17.8 °C (0.0 °F). While winters are very wet, coastal areas are generally milder and dry during summer under the influence of stable anti-cyclonic high pressure.

Southern Interior valleys are hot in summer; for example, in Osoyoos, the July maximum temperature averages 31.7 °C (89.1 °F), making it the hottest month of any location in Canada; this hot weather sometimes spreads towards the coast or to the far north of the province. Temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F) in the lower elevations of valleys in the Interior during mid-summer, with the record high of 49.6 °C (121.3 °F) being held in Lytton on June 30, 2021.

The extended summer dryness often creates conditions that spark forest fires, from dry-lightning or man-made causes. Many areas of the province are often covered by a blanket of heavy cloud and low fog during the winter months, in contrast to abundant summer sunshine. Annual sunshine hours vary from 2200 near Cranbrook and Victoria to less than 1300 in Prince Rupert, on the North Coast just south of Southeast Alaska.

The exception to British Columbia’s wet and cloudy winters is during the El Niño phase. During El Niño events, the jet stream is much farther south across North America, making the province’s winters milder and drier than normal. Winters are much wetter and cooler during the opposite phase, La Niña.