Burnaby was incorporated in 1892 and achieved its city status in 1992. A membermunicipality ofMetro Vancouver, it is British Columbia'sthird-largest city by population (after Vancouver and Surrey), and is theseat of Metro Vancouver'sregional district government. 25% of Burnaby's land is designated as parks and open spaces, one of the highest inNorth America.[4]
Early inhabitants were theHalkomelem- andSquamish-speakingCoast Salish Nations. Local landmarks such asBurnaby Mountain,Deer Lake, andBrunette River feature prominently in Indigenous history passed down through oral traditions.[9] The northern shorelines of Burnaby, along the second narrows ofBurrard Inlet was the site of an ancient battle between the attackingLekwiltok and the defendingMusqueam according to Chief Charlie Qiyəplenəxw.[9]
TheCoast Salish people living in BC andWashington state numbered more than 100,000 people, a level of population density supported by agriculture in other geographies.[9] Techniques to preserve and store surplus food sustained a hierarchical society. Burnaby's marshlands along its rivers and lakes werecranberry harvesting areas for numerous villages, some numbering over 1,000 residents.[9] Indigenous people travelled through Burnaby to reach the mouth of Brunette andFraser River for the bountiful fishing seasons,eulachon in the spring andsockeye salmon in the late summer. Early European explorers andfur traders introduced diseases that decimated the Indigenous population. This false appearance of Burnaby as a vast open space, along with traditional Indigenous farming techniques which did not permanently alter the landscape, meant Indigenous land in Burnaby was mislabelled asterra nullius.[9]
TheFraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858, the first of many gold rushes in British Columbia, brought over 30,000 fortune seekers, including many American miners. The fear of an impending annexation by the United States led to the creation of theColony of British Columbia in 1858 and the establishment ofNew Westminster as its capital.[10]
Settlers in Burnaby acquired land through a process called pre-emption which allowed people to claim a piece of land by clearing forests and building houses. Indigenous people were excluded from pre-emption. Royal Engineers dispossessed land from Indigenous people with the assistance of military force including the original routes of North Road, Kingsway, Canada Way, and Marine Drive.Logging permits given to settlers destroyed the forests of southern Burnaby which had provided vital sustenance for Indigenous people.[9]
The City of Burnaby is named after Burnaby Lake, in turn named afterRobert Burnaby, who was aFreemason, explorer, and legislator. He was previously private secretary to ColonelRichard Moody, the first land commissioner for the Colony of British of Columbia.[11][12] In 1859, Burnaby surveyed a freshwater lake in the city's geographic centre. Moody named it Burnaby Lake.
Burnaby was established in 1891 and incorporated a year later in 1892. In the same year, the interurban tram connectingVancouver, Burnaby, andNew Westminster began construction.[9]
The expanding urban centres of Vancouver and New Westminster influenced the growth of Burnaby. It developed as an agricultural area supplying nearby markets. Later, it evolved into an important transportation corridor between Vancouver, theFraser Valley and theInterior. The introduction of the Skytrain's Expo Line cemented this trend into the 21st century.
As Vancouver expanded and became a metropolis, Burnaby was one of the first-tiersuburbs of Vancouver, along withNorth Vancouver andRichmond. During the suburbanization of Burnaby, "Mid-Century Vernacular" homes were built by the hundreds to satisfy demand by new residents. The establishment of British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) in 1960 and Simon Fraser University (SFU) in 1965 helped Burnaby gradually become more urban in character. In 1992, one hundred years after its incorporation, Burnaby officially became a city.[13]
Since the 1970s, Burnaby has seen a decline in resource sectors and a subsequent rise of high value-added services and technology sectors. The presence of BCIT and SFU promoted research & development in the area. For example, manufacturing plants near Still Creek closed in the late 1970s, only to reopen few years later as film production studios.[9] The continued expansion of media production in Burnaby contributed toHollywood North.
Burnaby occupies 96.6 square kilometres (37.3 sq mi) and is located at the geographic centre of theMetro Vancouver Regional District. The city has four areas of urban density known as "town centres": Lougheed, Edmonds,Metrotown, and Brentwood. The city's governmental and cultural precincts are located in Burnaby's Deer Lake area. Situated between the city of Vancouver on the west andPort Moody,Coquitlam, andNew Westminster on the east, Burnaby is bounded byBurrard Inlet and theFraser River on the north and south, respectively. Burnaby, Vancouver and New Westminster collectively occupy the major portion of theBurrard Peninsula. The elevation of Burnaby ranges from sea level to a maximum of 370 metres (1,214 ft) atopBurnaby Mountain. Due to its elevation, the city of Burnaby typically has more snowfall during the winter months than nearby Vancouver or Richmond. Overall, the physical landscape of Burnaby is one of hills, ridges, valleys and an alluvial plain.
Burnaby is home to many industrial and commercial firms. British Columbia's largest (and Canada's second largest) commercial shopping mall,Metropolis at Metrotown, is located in Burnaby, as well as malls inBrentwood andLougheed town centres. Still, Burnaby's ratio of park land to residents is one of the highest in North America. It also maintains some agricultural land, particularly along the Fraser foreshore flats in the Big Bend neighbourhood along its southern perimeter.
Burnaby's Simon Fraser University weather station is located 365 metres (1,198 ft) above sea level on Burnaby Mountain. Therefore, climate records are cooler and wetter, with more snowfall, as compared to the rest of the city.
Burnaby has anoceanic climate (Cfb) with mild, dry summers and cool, rainy winters.
In the2021 Canadian census conducted byStatistics Canada, Burnaby had a population of 249,125 living in 101,136 of its 107,046 total private dwellings, an increase of7% from its 2016 population of 232,755. With a land area of 90.57 km2 (34.97 sq mi), it had a population density of2,750.6/km2 (7,124.1/sq mi) in 2021.[2]
In 2016, the median age is 40.3 years old, slightly younger than the British Columbia median of 43.0 years old.
Burnaby has diverse ethnic and immigrant communities. For example, North Burnaby near Hastings Street has long been home to manyItalian restaurants and recreationalbocce games.Metrotown's high-rise condominium towers in the south have been fuelled in part by arrivals from China (Hong Kong andMacau) during the 1990s, Taiwan, and South Korea[citation needed]. According to the 2021 census, ethnicChinese make up the largest ethnic group of Burnaby with 33.3% whileEuropeans make up a close 2nd with 30.5%.[15]
According to the 2006 census, 54% of Burnaby residents have a mother tongue that is neither English nor French. The 2016 census found that English was spoken as the mother tongue of 41.33 percent of the population. The next three most common languages wereMandarin (14.53 percent),Cantonese (12.32 percent) andTagalog (3.35 percent).[23]
The city features major commercial town centres, high-density residential areas, two rapid transit lines, technology research, business parks,film studios such asThe Bridge Studios, and TV stations such asGlobal TV.
Metrotown at sunset, as seen from northwestParkcrest (just south of Hastings Street)
Metropolis mall located in theMetrotown neighbourhood, thedowntown area of Burnaby,[24] is the largest mall in British Columbia withWest Vancouver'sPark Royal in second place. It is the second largest in Canada behind the first-placeWest Edmonton Mall inAlberta. Metropolis was the second most visited mall in Canada in 2017 and third most visited in 2018.[25]
Simon Fraser University's main campus, with more than 30,000 students and 950 staff, is located atopBurnaby Mountain. InMaclean's 2020 rankings, the university placed first in their comprehensive university category, and ninth in their reputation ranking for Canadian universities.[28]
British Columbia Institute of Technology's main campus in Burnaby, home to more than 49,000 full-time and part-time students, was established in 1964. A new $78 million, net-zero emission Health Science Centre, expected to open in late 2021, will accommodate 7,000 students.[29]
Burnaby is home to multiple museums highlighting the diverse history and culture of the city.Burnaby Village Museum is a 4.0-hectare (10-acre) open-air museum preserving a 1920s Canadian village. The Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre, which includes a Japanese garden, opened in 2000 to promote awareness and understanding of Japanese Canadian culture. The Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and SFU Galleries are located within the Simon Fraser University campus at the top of Burnaby Mountain.
Burnaby Public Library was first established in 1954. It currently has four locations throughout the city, including the Bobbie Prittie Metrotown, McGill, Tommy Douglas and Cameron branches in each of the four town centres. The library system holds over three million items in circulation, with more than 5,000 visitors per day.
Many cultural facilities are located in or aroundDeer Lake Park, including theBurnaby Art Gallery, Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, and the Burnaby Village Museum.
TheSkyTrain Operations Controls Centre 1, built in the 1980s, is responsible for the maintenance and operations of both the region'sExpo Line andMillennium Line. In 2021, construction began on a $110 million Operations Controls Centre 2 to accommodate growing transit ridership.[32]
The Expo Line, completed in 1986, crosses the south along Kingsway. The Millennium Line, completed in 2002, followsLougheed Highway. The SkyTrain has encouraged closer connections toNew Westminster,Vancouver, andSurrey, as well as dense urban development atLougheed Town Centre on the city's eastern border, atBrentwood Town Centre in the centre-west,Edmonds–Highgate in the southeast and, most notably, atMetrotown in the south.
Major north–south streets crossing the city include Boundary Road, Willingdon Avenue, Royal Oak Avenue, Kensington Avenue, Sperling Avenue, Gaglardi Way, Cariboo Road, and North Road. East–west routes linking Burnaby's neighbouring cities to each other includeHastings Street,Barnet Highway, theLougheed Highway,Kingsway (which follows the old horse trail between Vancouver and New Westminster), Canada Way and Marine Drive/Marine Way. Douglas Road, which used to cross the city from northwest to southeast, has largely been absorbed by theTrans-Canada Highway and Canada Way.
Since the 1990s, more than 70 kilometres (43 mi) of bike routes and urban trails have been laid in Burnaby.[33]
The 2050 Burnaby Transportation Plan, adopted in December 2021, outlines three targets: to reduce traffic fatalities to zero, to increase public transit and active transportation to 75 percent of all trips, and to reduce vehicle emissions by 100 percent.[37]
While Burnaby occupies about 4 percent of the land area of the Metro Vancouver Regional District, it accounted for about 10 percent of the region's population in 2016. It is the third most populated urban centre in British Columbia (after Vancouver and Surrey), with a population of 249,125 (2021).
Politically, Burnaby has maintained a left-wing city council closely affiliated with the provincialNDP and school board for many years, while sometimes electing more conservative legislators provincially (from theSocial Credit andBC Liberal parties) and federally (from theReform,Alliance, andConservative parties). Its longest-serving politician had beenSvend Robinson of theNew Democratic Party (NDP), Canada's first openlygay member of Parliament, but after 25 years and seven elections he resigned his post in early 2004 after stealing and then returning an expensive ring. Burnaby voters endorsed his assistant,Bill Siksay, as his replacement in the2004 Canadian federal election. In theMay 2013 provincial election, residents of the city sent 3 NDP MLAs and one Liberal MLA to the British Columbia legislature. The NDP MLA forBurnaby-Lougheed,Jane Shin, faced controversy after the election for misrepresenting herself as a physician despite not having completed a medical residency nor holding a licence to practice medicine.[40]
According to a 2009 survey byMaclean's magazine, Burnaby was Canada's best-run city. The survey looks at a city's efficiency, the cost of producing results, and the effectiveness of its city services.[41] However, Maclean's did note that Burnaby has one of the worst municipal voter turnouts in the country, at 26 percent. In 2015, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) included Burnaby as a Vancouver periphery to rank eighth for entrepreneurial communities.[42]
^Marshall, Daniel."Fraser River Gold Rush".The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada.Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. RetrievedJune 24, 2020.
^"Burnaby, British Columbia".Canadian Climate Normals 1981–2010. October 31, 2011.Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. RetrievedFebruary 17, 2015.
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