Vancouver (pronounced: [vænˈkuːvɚ]) is a city located in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is named after Captain George Vancouver, an English explorer. Vancouver has a population of 587,891[1], while its metropolitan region, the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), has a population of 2,180,737 (2006 estimate).

Greater Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area in western Canada and the third largest in the country. Vancouver is ethnically diverse, with more than half of its residents having a first language other than English. The city is growing rapidly, and the GVRD population is projected to reach 2.6 million by 2020. A resident of Vancouver is called a "Vancouverite".

Vancouver is located between the Strait of Georgia and the Coast Mountains. Its economy has traditionally relied on British Columbia's resource sectors: forestry, mining, fishing and agriculture. It was first settled in the 1860s as a result of immigration caused by the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, much of them Americans, although many did not remain there after the rushes and developed rapidly from a small lumber mill town into a metropolitan centre following the arrival of the transcontinental railway in 1887.

The Port of Vancouver became internationally significant after the completion of the Panama Canal, which reduced freight rates in the 1920s and made it viable to ship export-bound prairie grain west through Vancouver.[5] It has since become the busiest seaport in Canada, and exports more cargo than any other port in North America.[6] The economy of Vancouver has diversified over time, however.

Vancouver has a growing tourism industry, for example, and has become the third-largest film production centre in North America, after Los Angeles and New York City, earning it the nickname Hollywood North. More recently, Vancouver has had an expansion in high-tech industries, most notably video game design.

Vancouver is consistently ranked one of the three most livable cities in the world. In 2006, it was ranked the 56th most expensive city in which to live among 144 major cities in the world, and the second most expensive in Canada after Toronto. A similar 2006 study found that Vancouver had the third highest quality of living in the world, after Zürich and Geneva.

Vancouver is the home to a number of museums and galleries. The Vancouver Art Gallery has a permanent collection of over 7,900 items valued at over $100 million and is the home of a significant number of works by Emily Carr. The Vancouver Maritime Museum is a nautical museum featuring the St. Roch, the first vessel to sail the Northwest Passage and to circumnavigate North America. The Museum of Anthropology at UBC is a leading museum of Pacific Northwest Coast First Nations culture, and the Vancouver Museum is the largest civic museum in Canada. A more interactive museum is Science World.

In 1986, Greater Vancouver's cultural community created the Alliance for Arts and Culture to provide a strong voice for the sector and an avenue to work together. This coalition now numbers more than 320 arts groups and individuals. The Alliance's mission is to "strive towards an environment that recognizes, respects, and responds to the contribution our sector makes to society's well-being."