Greater Vancouver Regional District - Municipalities

Municipalities

Thirteen of the province's thirty most populous municipalities are located in Metro Vancouver. The official land area of the district is 2,877.36 square kilometres (1,111 sq mi). It is the most densely populated regional district in British Columbia.

The Regional District comprises the governments of 21 incorporated municipalities and one unincorporated area. The 21 municipalities are:

Abbotsford is a member for parks purposes only.

Greater Vancouver Regional District Electoral Area A comprises all unincorporated land within the Regional District boundaries, and includes the University of British Columbia, the University Endowment Lands, and residential areas and isolated dwellings on Howe Sound between Lions Bay and Horseshoe Bay, on Indian Arm to the north of Deep Cove and Belcarra/Anmore, and on the west side of Pitt Lake to the north of Port Coquitlam. Passage Island and Barnston Island in the Fraser River and are classified as Regional District Remainders.

There are also seventeen Indian reserves within the geographical area that are not subject to governance by the municipalities or the Regional District; they have a combined population of 7,550 (2006).

The cities of Abbotsford and Chilliwack and the district of Mission, located to the east, although often linked to Vancouver in promotions and tourism, are part of a separate regional district, the Fraser Valley Regional District, though part of the same region, the Lower Mainland. See Greater Vancouver for the larger geographic region meant by that term ("Metro Vancouver" refers only to the government of the regional district, and the regional district is not exactly coterminous with the region as such). Abbotsford participates in Metro Vancouver for parks purposes.