Talk:Lower Mainland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada and related WikiProjects, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Canada-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project member page, to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. |
| B | This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. |
| Mid | This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale. |
 |
|
 |
|
| 1 |
Contents |
[edit] Population
Changed population from 2 mil to 2.5 mil.I added Greater Vancouver's population with Fraser vally regional districts population.When one adds both,Van-2.2 mil ,Fraser val-300,000=2.5 million.
- Those numbers are estimates, not actual census data. I've changed the wording to clarify the number from the most recent census. Sunray 07:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Population -> Demographics
As per comments on Talk:Demographics of Vancouver and Talk:Vancouver concerning demographics, the population section here could include an outline of the ethnic composition of the Lower Mainland's various communities; I'm thinking of the post-war Dutch and German, incl. Mennonite, belt from Langley through to Chilliwack (it overlaps into Mission a bit, w. Germans also in Maple Ridge historically); Mission was very ethnic, pre and post war (it had the largest Japanese population other than Richmond and Vancouver, as well as a large French Canadian element that never preserved French; and a mix of also anglicized Italians, Poles, Finns, Ukrainians, Norwegians, Doukhobours, Hungarians, First Nations etc moreso than elsewhere (other than parts of the Interior); also a strong British-from-Britain component. Needless to say multiculturalism seemed a bit odd and artificial when it came along as an official agenda; we already lived that way without being self-conscious about it, and foreign accents were so common you just accepted them (nearly always parents only, until the Sikhs came in large numbers in the late '60s). Anyway, the resilience of Dutch identity is worth note (not just meaning the Zalm, but a way of life and values, of the conservative variety rather than Dutch liberalism now associated with Holland) in Langley, Aldergrove, Abby, Sardis; likewise the Mennonites; non-Menonnite Germans on the other hand tend to completely assimilate, and aren't as religious for the most part. The valley is also the long-time historic focus of the Sikh community, particularly in Abbotsford which was and is the site of the first Gurdwara in BC, vintage 1900s; Newton, Abbotsford, Mission and Chilliwack have as significant Sikh communities as Punjabi Market, though not the marketing identity (well, except for Newton, almost...). Then of course there's the Persian community concentrated on the North Shore, and increasingly in the West End The particular character of old New West also has demographic issue in terms of its ethnic and class composition (btw its Chinatown was the largest on the mainland from the 1850s until the 1890s when it was destroyed in that city's Great Fire and never rebuilt; Barkerville's Chinatown may have been larger 1862-1870s but there are no exact figures). It's occurred to me while writing this, also, that in all demographics sections there should be some class/social geography such as New West's Queens Park being an upper-crust enclave, or North Burnaby vs South Burnaby - the concentration of Italians and Croatians in North Burnaby, the more complex mix in South Burnaby, the more swanky areas clustered around Burnaby Mountain and Cariboo Hill-Deer Lake. The transient student population of the city and the GVRD, Lower Mainland etc respectively might also be interesting to work out. Also the prison population of the valley towns (the prisons are major economic engines in Mission and Abbotsford, just as the BC Pen was at one time in New West; but less so in Maple Ridge and Kent). Skookum1 09:25, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Satellite map draft - comments/input requested
I just created a map showing the strict definition of the Lower Mainland, using a NASA Visible Earth image which is public domain; I'm not a graphic artist/mapmaker and so it could maybe be better looking; I also haven't put city-names on it, only the boundary.
, and to show areas sometimes included (Hope, Chilliwack River, Howe Sound/Lions Bay)
. I can also make a basemap that has eneough room to show the Lower Mainland EcoRegion (which AFAIK includes the Sunshine Coast, but really is an MoE administrative definition/district) but I'll have to be reminded of what the differences are. On the existing map, the northern boundary could just be a straight line from West Vancouver-Howe Sound across northern Maple Ridge and Mission to Agassiz-Rosedale, but other than northern Mission I've followed pretty much the line of settlement and the line where the mountains "break" into the Lower Mainland; in a strict, quasi-legal sense, the northern boundary should probably coincide with the New Westminster Land District but I don't have that map handy so went with this for a draft. Comments on what else should be on this map welcome - I don't want to clutter it with city names - obviously Vancouver, Abbostford, and Chilliwack for orientation; but "who" else, and what else? I'll load the basemap here, which is an excerpt of a much larger map currently used for Monashee Mountains; my excerpt roughly coincides with a 1:400,000 map of SW BC produced by MoE which reaches over to and including Kamloops and Kelowna, and as far north as Clinton; I'll upload that to Wikimedia Commons so it's genrally available and will come back to post the link to that item here later.Skookum1 04:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
- PS Hm. Obviously should change the image-name next time, so they're not unwieldy long...I have a habit of adding txt data to photofiles so as to keep track of what I did to them...which is why the long filenames and why they begin with "Washington" (it was a US source after all).Skookum1 04:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
- The map looks accurate to what I consider the Lower Mainland, which most definitely does not include the Sunshine Coast. The best perspective I can put on that issue would be how one from the Sunshine Coast would describe themselves to someone not too geographically astute from say, Dawson Creek. It's a self-identity thing as much as anything, which is very hard to formalize with sources. Lions Bay would be an inclusion in my opinion as well based on the same perspective. Hope is right on the cusp, and in fact I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with including such places in multiple regions, when we eventually start categorizing all this stuff--Keefer4 07:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
-
- Just as an addendum re: self-identity perspective. I consider myself intimately familiar with how ppl in every part of the province self-identify. In the course of my last job, over past six years, I've spoken to approx 150,000 British Columbians from every part of the province, 60% of those from outside Van/Vic. And each time I was required to ask them which part of the province they were in. There was variety in the answers, even if they were in same region, but just saying that never heard Sunshine COast folks refer to themselves as LM once.(job was gov't blue page enquiry ;) ) Although I realize that is original research so... but man reading everything above sure was fun!!--Keefer4 20:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Vancouver-Kamloops NASA sat image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons
Here is the Vancouver-Kamloops sat-map mentioned above, as loaded into Wikimedia Commons. The cloud front above Logan Lake and the bits of cumulus - maybe thunderstorms - north of Kamloops I can't do much about short of pixel-by-pixel retouching edits; another source image may not have these bits of cloud cover; I'll check around. Skookum1 05:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Population data
Some folks keep changing the population in the lead sentence of the article from 2.2 M to 2.5 M. However, they do not change the reference, so the reference says the number is from the 2001 Census, which is incorrect. The higher number also conflicts with the article's section on Population which summarizes the population according to the 2001 Census. As I have said in more than one edit summary, if you want to change the population in the lead, fine, but you will have to change the reference to the 2006 Census. That isn't difficult, but you also have to change the entry in the Population section, which isn't so easy as you have to add the numbers. I know, I've tried. If you are not up to that, I would suggest we put a request to the folks at WikiProject Vancouver to see if someone can update it. Sunray 22:48, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Hope??
Is Hope, British Columbia not considered part of the Lower Mainland? I always thought of it as the eastern edge of the Lower Mainland.Canuck85 (talk) 13:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
