The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05 million people as of the 2021 Canadian census, the Lower Mainland contains sixteen of the province's 30 most populous municipalities and approximately 60% of the province's total population.
The Township of Langley is a district municipality immediately east of the City of Surrey in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It extends south from the Fraser River to the Canada–United States border, and west of the City of Abbotsford. Langley Township is not to be confused with the City of Langley, which is adjacent to the township but politically is a separate entity. Langley is located in the eastern part of Metro Vancouver.
Maple Ridge is a city in British Columbia, Canada. It is located in the northeastern section of Greater Vancouver between the Fraser River and the Golden Ears, which is a group of mountain summits which are the southernmost of the Garibaldi Ranges of the Coast Mountains. Maple Ridge's population in 2021 was 90,990. Its downtown core area was once known as Haney.
Mission is a city in the Lower Mainland of the province of British Columbia, Canada. It was originally incorporated as a district municipality in 1892, growing to include additional villages and rural areas over the years, adding the original Town of Mission City, long an independent core of the region, in 1969. It is bordered by the city of Abbotsford to the south and the city of Maple Ridge to the west. To the east are the unincorporated areas of Hatzic and Dewdney.
Pitt Meadows is a city within Metro Vancouver in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Incorporated in 1914, it currently has a land area of 86.34 square kilometres (33.34 sq mi) with an estimate population of 19,498 as of 2024. The city received its name from the Pitt River and Pitt Lake. Pitt Meadows is one of the cities in British Columbia including Electoral Area A that comprises the Metro Vancouver Regional District.
Highway 7, known for most of its length as the Lougheed Highway and Broadway, is an alternative route to Highway 1 through the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. Whereas the controlled-access Highway 1 follows the southern bank of the Fraser River, Highway 7 follows the northern bank.
The Stó꞉lō, alternately written as Sto꞉lo, Stó꞉lô, or Stó꞉lõ, historically as Staulo, Stalo or Stahlo, and historically known and commonly referred to in ethnographic literature as the Fraser River Indians or Lower Fraser Salish, are a group of First Nations peoples inhabiting the Fraser Valley and lower Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, Canada, part of the loose grouping of Coast Salish nations. Stó꞉lō is the Halqemeylem word for "river", so the Stó꞉lō are the river people. The first documented reference to these people as "the Stó꞉lō" occurs in Catholic Oblate missionary records from the 1880s. Prior to this, references were primarily to individual tribal groups such as Matsqui, Ts’elxweyeqw, or Sumas.
Ruskin is a rural, naturally-treed community, about 35 mi (56 km) east of Vancouver on the north shore of the Fraser River. It was named around 1900 after the English art critic, essayist, and prominent social thinker John Ruskin.
The Lillooet River is a major river of the southern Coast Mountains of British Columbia. It begins at Silt Lake, on the southern edge of the Lillooet Crown Icecap about 80 kilometres northwest of Pemberton and about 85 kilometres northwest of Whistler. Its upper valley is about 95 kilometres in length, entering Lillooet Lake about 15 km downstream from Pemberton on the eastern outskirts of the Mount Currie reserve of the Lil'wat branch of the St'at'imc people. From Pemberton Meadows, about 40 km upstream from Pemberton, to Lillooet Lake, the flat bottomlands of the river form the Pemberton Valley farming region.
The Douglas Ranges are a subrange of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains of the Canadian province of British Columbia, about 70 km (43 mi) east of downtown Vancouver, north of the Fraser River and between the valleys of Stave and Harrison Lakes. They are approximately 4,900 km2 (1,900 sq mi) in area. Their highest peak is Mount Robertson 2,252 m (7,388 ft), at the northwest limit of the range.
Fort Langley National Historic Site, commonly shortened to Fort Langley, is a former fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company in the community of Fort Langley of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. The national historic site sits above the banks of the Bedford Channel across McMillan Island. The national historic site contains a visitor centre and a largely reconstructed trading post that contains ten structures surrounded by wooden palisades.
Kwantlen First Nation is a First Nations band government in British Columbia, Canada, located primarily on McMillan Island near Fort Langley. The Kwantlen people traditionally speak hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓, the Downriver dialect of Halkomelem, one of the Salishan family languages.
Albion, British Columbia is a neighbourhood in Maple Ridge, British Columbia and is one of several small towns incorporated within the municipality at its creation. It is the oldest non-indigenous community of the district's settlements, and is only slightly younger than Fort Langley, adjacent across the Fraser River, and Kanaka Creek, which is just to the west and lies along the creek of the same name. Its official definition is the area bounded by the Fraser River, Kanaka Way, and 240th Street, but in its historic sense it means the community centred on and flanking 240th Street and adjoining areas along the Fraser River waterfront and around the Maple Ridge Fairgrounds, while along Kanaka Way and also on the near bank of Kanaka Creek, the creek, is historically the community of Kanaka Creek. Burgeoning newer home construction east of 240th Street near the Lougheed Highway is also often referred to as part of Albion.
Kanaka Creek is an historic rural residential area located within Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, along the banks of the creek of the same name just east of the district's main town and commercial core of Haney. Just east is Albion and immediately across the Fraser River is Derby or "Old Fort Langley", upstream from which and opposite Albion is Fort Langley. Kanaka Creek was settled by Hawaiian natives in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, known as Kanakas, often with local indigenous, usually Kwantlen, wives. Once a thriving community linked closely to the affairs of the fort, like the rancherie outside Fort Vancouver, Kanaka Creek dwindled somewhat when the fort was located further upstream, although some of the original families stayed on for decades. The area has long since been subdivided and is a suburban neighbourhood now, with Kanaka Creek Road, along the creek's west bank, the main arterial, which like the creek runs generally northeast, finally becoming 232nd Street to connect to the Dewdney Trunk Road. Upstream, to the northeast, is Kanaka Creek Regional Park and street connections to Webster's Corners and 240th Street. Although mostly suburban the neighbourhood retains a greenbelt quality because of the protection of the creek by its park and as a salmon spawning stream, and there are still farms operating in some parts of the area.
The Katzie First Nation or Katzie Nation is a First Nation whose traditional territory lies in the Lower Fraser Valley of British Columbia, Canada. According to their oral tradition, the Katzie people are the descendants of the Oe'lecten and Swaneset communities, two of five established by the Creator in present-day Greater Vancouver.
Kanaka Creek Regional Park is a regional park of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, located in the city of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, flanking both sides of Kanaka Creek from its confluence with the Fraser River just east of Haney and extending approximately 11 km up the creek to just south of the community of Webster's Corners. The Maple Ridge Fairgrounds are just east of the lower regions of the park, beyond them is the community of Albion. Derby Reach Regional Park is just across the Fraser in Langley.
Glover Road is a primary road in Langley, British Columbia which runs from southwest to northeast North-South from the Fraser Highway in downtown Langley to the Fraser River in Fort Langley, travelling over British Columbia Highway 1 and through the community of Milner, British Columbia. The road is 11 km (7 mi) in length and mostly two lanes wide with some divided four lane sections. It is notable as the primary road in and to the village of Fort Langley and as being concurrent for some of its length with British Columbia Highway 10. Beyond Fort Langley, it crosses the Jacob Haldi Bridge onto McMillan Island and terminates at the decommissioned Albion Ferry dock within the lands of the Kwantlen First Nation. The Glover Road overpass is a six-span, two-lane structure permitting access across Trans-Canada Highway. The underpass received an overheight-warning system, the second in the province, following damage from three collisions in three years.
The neighbourhood of Thornhill on the south slope of Grant Hill in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, forms the western part of the historical community of Whonnock. The lower part along the Fraser River attracted some early settlers, but the higher land only became populated after the First World War, when Japanese farmers were among the first to open its land for agriculture. After the Japanese were evicted in 1942, their lands became available to a growing community of young white families.
The Hatzic Valley is the southerly, lowland portion of the Fraser Valley Regional District Electoral Area "F" of British Columbia's Lower Mainland. The valley was carved as a result of southward glacial action, being "centered along a low‐lying glacial trough that extends from Stave Lake to the Fraser Valley."
