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Concept
Lower Mainland
Summary
The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05 million people as of the 2021 Canadian census, the Lower Mainland contains sixteen of the province's 30 most populous municipalities and approximately 60% of the province's total population.
The region is the traditional territory of the Sto:lo, a Halkomelem-speaking people of the Coast Salish linguistic and cultural grouping.
Although the term Lower Mainland has been recorded from the earliest period of colonization in British Columbia, it has never been officially defined in legal terms. The term has historically been in popular usage for over a century to describe a region that extends from Horseshoe Bay south to the Canada–United States border and east to Hope at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley. This definition makes the term Lower Mainland almost synonymous with the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley.
However, the British Columbia Geographical Names Information System (BCGNIS) comments that most residents of Vancouver might consider it to be only areas west of Mission and Abbotsford, while residents in the rest of the province consider it to be the Sea-to-Sky Corridor south of Whistler and west of Hope.
Lower Mainland Ecoregion and Puget lowland forests
The region is bounded to the north by the Pacific Ranges and to the southeast by the Cascade Mountains, and is traversed from east to west by the Fraser River. Due to its consistency of climate, flora and fauna, geology and land use, "Lower Mainland" is also the name of an ecoregion—a biogeoclimatic region—that comprises the eastern part of the Georgia Depression and extends from Powell River on the Sunshine Coast to Hope at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley.
One of the mildest climates in Canada, the region has a mean annual temperature of with a summer mean of and a winter mean of .
Official source
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