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PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
Part of the Teaching & Learning About Canada Website
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PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
Part of the Teaching & Learning About Canada Website
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VISIT
A BRITISH COLUMBIA PRIMER
BC Milestones 100 Best Things Concise History KnowBC Quiz BC Links
**Lots of interesting facts here- like- BC exceeds the area of France and Germany combined.
click to enlarge
Relief Map
© 2000, 2002 Government of Canada with permission from Natural Resources Canada.
BC Snap shot of the land
Approximately
21% (20.3 million hectares) of
British Columbia is rock or consists of alpine barren ice fields and glaciers.
Approximately 62% of British
Columbia is forest land, with 48 million hectares, or 51% productive forest.
Approximately
5%
(4.04 million hectares) of British Columbia is arable and grazing land
consisting of 2.6 million hectares cultivated land; 10 million hectares open
range; and 0.4 million hectares Alpine and sub-Alpine range.
The People
B.C.'s population was 4.168 million people, as of March 2004.
British Columbia is home to people of many different origins, cultural traditions, languages, ethnicities, and religions.
B.C.'s aboriginal people are known as First Nations. There are 197 First Nations bands in the province, such as the Gitxsan, Haida, Nisga'a and Squamish.
The top 10 languages spoken are now (according to the 2001 Census): English, Chinese (including Cantonese and Mandarin), Punjabi, German, French, Tagalog, Spanish, Italian, Korean, and Dutch.
Each year, approximately 35,000 immigrants from around the world arrive in B.C.
92% of Allophones live in Ontario, B.C. ,Quebec or Alberta.
NEXT ?
| NFLD | NS | NB | P.E.I. | QUEBEC |
| ONTARIO | MANITOBA | SASK. | ALBERTA | BC |
| YUKON | NW TERR. | NUNAVUT | CANADA | CITIES |
For detailed graphs and tables, see
Graphs Based on Canadian Statistics
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9.5% of Canada's Area 12.7 % of Canada's population
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Origin of British Columbia's Name
Much of the mainland region was originally known as New Caledonia; however, this name (duplicated in South Pacific) was discarded in favour of British Columbia. The designation appears to have originated with Queen Victoria and was officially proclaimed in 1858. Columbia (after the Columbia River which was named by the American Captain Robert Gray for his ship Columbia ) had previously been loosely applied to the southern portion of the colony.
First known as Fort Victoria, the city, like the numerous other locations of the same name, commemorates Queen Victoria (1819-1900). The name was chosen by the Council of the Northern Department (Hudson's Bay Company) at Fort Garry, June 10, 1843.
British Columbia in the last federal election- May 1997
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