British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Rocky Mountains to the east.
With an estimated population of 5.68 million as of 2025, it is Canada’s third-most populous and third-largest province by area. The capital is Victoria, located on Vancouver Island, while Vancouver — the province’s largest city — anchors a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people. British Columbia’s geography ranges from rugged coastlines and temperate rainforests to interior deserts and alpine peaks, offering some of North America’s most varied terrain for mountain, coastal and wilderness expeditions. Indigenous peoples including the Coast Salish, Tsilhqotʼin and Haida have inhabited the region for at least 10,000 years. The modern province emerged from the 1858 Fraser Canyon Gold Rush and the subsequent union of the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, entering Canadian Confederation in 1871. Today roughly six per cent of the population is Indigenous, and the province draws on British, European and Asian diasporas alongside its First Nations heritage.
