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Vancouver is a coastal city and major seaport located in the Lower Mainland of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. The city is bounded by English Bay, Burrard Inlet, the Fraser River, the city of Burnaby, and the University Endowment Lands. Vancouver is named after Captain George Vancouver, a British explorer. The name Vancouver itself originates from the Dutch "van Coevorden", denoting somebody from (in Dutch: "van") Coevorden, an old city in The Netherlands.

As of July 2009, the city's estimated population was 615,473 and that of the metropolitan area, 2,318,200. Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area in Western Canada and the third largest in the country. Vancouver is ethnically diverse, with 52% of city residents having a first language other than English.

Vancouver was first settled by Europeans in the 1860s as a result of immigration to the Colony of British Columbia caused by the Fraser and Cariboo Gold Rushes, though only a very few settled in what would become the city of Vancouver. The city's roots are based in logging and the founding of a large lumber mill, which gave birth to Gastown. The settlement expanded rapidly in the 1880s into a metropolitan centre following the arrival of the transcontinental railway in 1887. The Port of Vancouver became internationally significant as a node in the global trade network of the British Empire with the combined steamship and railway of the Canadian Pacific Railway shortening shipping times from the Orient to London. The port is now the busiest in Canada, and the fourth largest port (by tonnage) in North America.