A bit of history
Vancouver was originally a small sawmilling settlement, called Granville in the 1870s. It was incorporated as a city in April 1886 ,just before it became the western terminus of the first trans-Canada railway, the Canadian Pacific, and was renamed to honor the English navigator George Vancouver, of the Royal Navy, who had explored and surveyed the coast in 1792.
​
Firstly The region was inhabited by several Native American people when a trading post, Fort Langley, was set up by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1827 near the mouth of the Fraser River. Then thousands of miners, mostly from California, flooded into the region in the 1860s, attracted by the gold rush in the Cariboo Mountains to the northeast.
​
By the 1930s Vancouver was Canada’s major Pacific coast port. After World War II it developed into Canada’s main business hub for trade with Asia and the Pacific Rim.The city has long been a popular destination for immigrants both from other parts of Canada and from overseas.
