Wikipedia
British Columbia, (commonly referred to by its initials BC), is the westernmost province of Canada, with a population of more than 4 million people located between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. British Columbia is also a component of the Pacific Northwest and the Cascadia bioregion, along with the U.S. states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The province's name was chosen in 1858 by members of the Hudson's Bay Company.
The first British settlement in the area was the Colony of British Columbia (1858–66), the first Lieutenant-Governor of which, from 1858 to 1863, was Richard Clement Moody, who was hand-picked by the Colonial Office in London to transform British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west" , and “to found a second England on the shores of the Pacific”. Moody selected the site for and founded the original capital of British Columbia, New Westminster and established the Cariboo Road and Stanley Park. Port Moody is named after him. In 1871, British Columbia became the sixth province of Canada. Its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu ("Splendour without Diminishment").
The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the fifteenth-largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for the Queen who created the Colony of British Columbia. The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, and the second-largest in the Pacific Northwest. In October 2013, British Columbia had an estimated population of 4,606,371 (about 2.5 million of whom were in Greater Vancouver). The province is currently governed by the BC Liberal Party, led by Premier Christy Clark, who became leader as a result of a leadership convention vote on February 26, 2011, and who led her party to an election victory on May 14, 2013.
British Columbia evolved from British possessions that were established in what is now British Columbia by 1871. First Nations, the original inhabitants of the land, have a history of at least 10,000 years in the area. Today there are few treaties and the question of Aboriginal Title, long ignored, has become a legal and political question of frequent debate as a result of recent court actions. Notably, the Tsilhqot'in Nation has established Aboriginal title to a portion of their territory, as a result of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision (William [Tsilhqot'in Nation] v. British Columbia).
B.C.'s economy is diverse, with service producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the province's GDP. It is the endpoint of transcontinental railways, and the site of major Pacific ports that enable international trade. Though less than 5% of its vast land is arable, the province is agriculturally rich, (particularly in the Fraser and Okanagan valleys), because of milder weather near the coast and in certain sheltered southern valleys. Its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the province's largest city and metropolitan area, also serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies. It also benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average. While the coast of British Columbia and certain valleys in the south-central part of the province have mild weather, the majority of its land mass experiences a cold-winter-temperate climate similar to that of the rest of Canada. The Northern Interior region has a subarctic climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, with nighttime January temperatures averaging above the freezing point.
British Columbia is a province of Canada, which has given its name to many associated places and institutions:
Usage examples of "british columbia".
These include Alert on Ellesmere Island in the Northwest Territories, which for decades has monitored Russian over-the-pole communications, and CFS Masset in British Columbia, which also has a giant elephant-cage antenna.
This is the great river in the Pacific Ocean which makes California a winter resort, and gives Oregon, Washington and British Columbia coasts much higher temperatures than places of the same latitude on the Atlantic.
Probably he'd been born right after the Change, and wandered in westward from the Montana-Wyoming mountains, or down from British Columbia, looking to stake out his own feeding ground.
The most recent blue moon that I know of appeared on September 26, 1950, when a forest fire in northern British Columbia sent up enough sulfur to make the moon seem bluish when seen from England.
Let me tell you about a commune of hippies, of life as a child in the trees on an island in British Columbia.
So there are only four Hearts left, of which three, I am happy to say, are here in this house, as I write to the fourth, in British Columbia.
His oldest natural son is 22, a religion major at Swarthmore, and has bought 100 acres in British Columbia accessible only by water.
Island off British Columbia, Canada, that Drake and the Golden Hind sail to after leaving Cano Island.
Island off British Columbia, Canada, that Drake andthe Golden Hind sail to after leaving Cano Island.