Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Craigdarroch Castle, Victoria, British Columbia
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Craigdarroch_Castle_May_2011.jpg
Author: Hugh Lee


Victoria is the provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada. It covers 19.47 sq km (7.52 sq mi) and has a population of 80,000 people (2012 estimate) within a metropolitan area with 345,000 people. The city is on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, about 100 km (62 mi) from the city of Vancouver, which is on the British Columbia mainland.

Until the arrival of European settlers, the Victoria area was inhabited by the Coast Salish tribe of First Nations people. The city traces its history to 1843, when James Douglas founded the settlement of Fort Albert. In 1846 it was renamed Fort Victoria. It was incorporated as the city of Victoria in 1862, and became the capital in 1866.

Today Victoria's economy is diverse, ranging from technology and food products to tourism, education and government administration. It receives 3.5 million overnight visitors and another half a million daytime visitors who arrive by cruise ships.

Visiting Victoria

The BC Ferries provide services between Vancouver and Victoria. These ferries carry vehicles as well. The fare is C$47.25 per passenger vehicle (excluding passengers), C$14.25 for the driver and any passenger aged 12 and above, and C$7.25 for children aged 5 to 11.

You can also fly to Victoria from Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto.

Places of Interest in Victoria

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Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.