Multiculturalism & Diversity

Vancouver’s Diverse Population

The City of Vancouver is made up of people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. In the 1980 document, Goals For Vancouver, released by the Vancouver Planning Commission, it was recognized that “Vancouver’s ethnic diversity is one of the primary contributions to the unique character of the city.” Since the mid-1980’s, the city’s population has grown even more diverse, partly due to inter-provincial migration, and partly from international immigration.

The city is the second largest in Canada with a high percentage of visible minority and immigrant populations. In 2006, 51.0% of the city’s total population was of visible minority background—an increase from 49.0% in 2001 and 44.8% in 1996.

In 2006, 45.6% of the total population were immigrants(defined as people who were not born in Canada). Vancouver has 14% of BC’s population, but roughly a quarter BC’s total immigrants.

The most numerous groups of recent immigrants are of Chinese (26.1%), Hong Kong (11.2%), Filipino (8.7%), UK (5.3%) and Indian (4.9%) origin. The classification of “recent immigrants” refers to those who immigrated in the last five years.

The people of Vancouver also speak a multitude of languages. Based on the 2006 Census figures, 50.0% (286,710) of the city’s population identified English as their mother tongue, while 50.0% (286,175) identified a language other than English as their mother tongue. Other than English, the top ten other "mother tongue" languages are: Cantonese (63,695 speakers), Mandarin (22,565), Tagalog, 16,050) Punjabi (15,505), Vietnamese (10,440), French (9,290), Spanish (9,290), Korean (7,870) and Japanese (7,040).

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