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Open Data catalogue

The Open Data Catalogue makes the City of Vancouver's vast amount of data publicly available online.

Our Open Data catalogue provides free and open access to over 155 City datasets and we add new datasets regularly.

Open data is anonymized (not personally identifiable), free, and available to everyone in one or more open and accessible formats.

When you download datasets, you agree to the licences in the tab below.

View the list of datasets

Related projects

Updated Council expenses and employee remuneration data sets

April 17, 2019 - Updated Council budget and expenses data set to include 2018 fourth-quarter data

Updated employee remuneration and expenses (earning over $75,000/year) data set to include 2018 data

Anonymous ballot marking data set

January 31, 2019 - Added anonymous ballot marking data for 2018 municipal election and 2017 municipal by-election. Data is available in CSV and XLSX formats.

Updated Council budget and expenses data set

January 24, 2019 - Updated Council budget and expenses data set to include 2018 third-quarter data. Data is available in CSV and XLS formats.

Updated municipal election results data set and voting places data set

November 21, 2018 - Updated municipal election results data set to include 2018 municipal election official results. Data is available in CSV and XLS formats.

Updated voting places data set to include voting places used for the 2018 municipal election. Data is available in CSV, XLS, SHP, and KML formats.

Updated Council budget and expenses data set

October 4, 2018 - Updated Council budget and expenses data set to include 2018 second-quarter data

Updated non-market housing projects data set

September 18, 2018 - Updated non-market housing projects data set to include an expanded data description, additional attributes, and more available formats. Data is available in CSV, XLS, DWG, KML, and SHP formats.

Updated Council expenses, employee remuneration, and business licence data sets

April 12, 2018 - Updated Council budget and expenses data set to include 2017 fourth-quarter data in conjunction with the release of our statement of financial information.

Updated employee remuneration and expenses (earning $75,000/year) data set to include 2017 data in conjunction with the release of our statement of financial information.

Updated business licence dataset. Hisorical data files from 1997 forward to current year has been updated for home-based businesses. The City has removed the business address from the home-based business licence category. Data is available in CSV, JSON, XLS, and XML formats.

Issued building permits data

February 21, 2018 - Added information of all building permits issued by City of Vancouver since 2017. The data is based on permit issuance date and does not show current status of a permit, or changes after a permit is originally issued. Data is available in CSV and XLSX formats.

Census local area profiles 2016

February 8, 2018 - The 2016 Census provides statistical information about the population, age and sex, type of dwelling, families, households and marital status, language, income, immigration and ethnocultural diversity, housing, Aboriginal peoples, education, labour, journey to work, language of work and mobility, and migration, as measured in the census program.

The data is provided by Statistics Canada from the 2016 Census as a custom profile for each of the City's 22 Local Areas. The data may be reproduced provided they are credited to Statistics Canada, Census 2016. Data is available in CSV and XLS formats.

Improved bikeways data

January 25, 2018 - Improved bikeways data set to include many more attributes and data descriptions. Data is available in DWG, KML, and SHP formats.

Improved public art data and updated parking tickets data 

November 30, 2017 – Improved public art data set to include data descriptions, many more attributes, and data formats. Data is available in CSV, JSON, DWG, KML, and SHP formats. 

Updated parking ticket records data set to include quarter three data. Current year data is refreshed quarterly and is available in CSV format. 

Updated municipal election results data set and voting places data set

November 20, 2017 - Updated municipal election results data set to include 2017 By-election official results. Data is available in CSV and XLS formats.

Updated voting places data set to include voting places used for the 2017 By-election municipal election. Data is available in CSV, XLS, SHP, and KML formats.

Mountain View Cemetery burial index

October 30, 2017 - Added name and grave location of those buried at the Mountain View Cemetery, owned and operated by the City of Vancouver since 1887. Data is available in CSV, XLS, SHP, DWG, and KML formats.

Improved street trees data

June 19, 2017 – Updated street trees dataset to include coordinates data provided by the 2016 tree invetory project. Data is available in XML, JSON, CSV, XLS, and SHP format.

Updated Council expenses data and employee remuneration data

April 5, 2017 – Updated Council budget and expenses data set to include 2016 fourth-quarter data in conjunction with the release of our statement of financial information.

Updated employee remuneration and expenses (earning over $75,000/year) data set to include 2016 data in conjunction with the release of our statement of financial information.

Parking ticket data, changes to city street package and crime data

March 13, 2017 – Updated crime dataset to include 3 additional crime types related to vehicle collisions and bike thefts.

Updated garbage collection data set to include boundaries and pick up schedule of multi-unit residential buildings. Data is available in SHP, DWG, and KML formats.

January 31, 2017 – Added parking ticket records data since 2010. Current year data will be refreshed quarterly and is available in CSV format.

Updated and improved city streets package data. Alleyways are now called lanes with right-of-way widths data also included in the package. JSON format is added along with DWG, KML, and SHP format.

Changed crime data from XLS format to XLSX format. Data is also available in CSV, SHP, and JSON formats.

Improved crime data and zoning data package

December 1, 2016 – Updated crime dataset to include time information (day, hour, and minute) based on findings of police investigations, except for the crime type "offences against a person".

Improved zoning data package dataset with much better label displays in DWG format.

Improved Council budget and spending transparency data

October 17, 2016 – The inclusion of office budgets and new reporting style are based on the Council-approved motion of Proactive Quarterly Release of Mayor's Office Expenses on May 3, 2016, and enactment of Bylaws 11483 and 11529 in mid-2016. Data is available in CSV, XLS, and XML formats.

Updated Council expenses data and improved drinking fountains data

July 12, 2016 – Updated Council expenses quarter one data to include discretionary budget and expenses. Councillors’ discretionary budget was approved under the motion of February 24, 2016.  The reporting format has been updated to reflect this change. Data is available in CSV, XLS, and XML formats.

Improved drinking fountains data to include more attributes. Data is available in CSV, XLS, DWG, SHP, KML, and JSON formats.

Orthophotos 2015 and additional employee remuneration and expenses data

June 30, 2016 - Added orthophotos for 2015 and they are in our highest resolution quality to date (7.5 cm). Coverage includes the City, UBC, the University Endowment Lands, parts of Richmond, and the Vancouver International Airport (YVR). All data is available in ECW and MrSID formats.

Updated employee remuneration and expenses (earning over $75,000/year) dataset to include data since year 2008.

Employee remuneration and expenses (over $75,000/year)

June 22, 2016 - Added dataset on the remuneration and expenses of staff in excess of $75,000 for 2013-2015. Data is available in XLS and CSV formats and includes name, title and dept.

Public washrooms data

May 3, 2016 - Added dataset on the locations and attributes of public washrooms that are on city streets and in public parks. Data is available in CSV, XLS, and KML formats.

Council voting record

April 11, 2016 - We are excited to add individual Council member vote records for Regular Council, Special Council, Standing Committee, and Public Hearing meeting types. In 2016, City Council began using an electronic voting system. Through this system, a unique vote number is assigned to each agenda item voted on. This vote number is referenced in the corresponding meeting minutes. We will add the most recent vote records to the data set within two business days of publishing the meeting minutes. Data is available in CSV and XLS formats.

Datasets are made available in one or more formats depending on the type and context of the data.

CSV/XLS

This is a basic text format that can be opened by many applications including Excel and other spreadsheet applications.

 Excel may not display content in CSV correctly.

DWG

DWG is a "de facto GIS standard" format native to Autodesk design and GIS software. It can be consumed by a wide variety of Autodesk and non-Autodesk software packages.

ECW

ECW is a format used for geo-referenced raster images that is highly compressed.

GeoJSON

GeoJSON is a lightweight text-based open standard designed for human-readable data interchange. GeoJSON is a version of JSON that focuses on geographically-based data.

JSON

JSON is a lightweight text-based open standard designed for human-readable data interchange.

KML

KML is a mark-up language developed by Keyhole Inc. and subsequently acquired by Google to display data in Google Maps, Google Earth and similar applications. KML is an Open Geospatial Consortium standard.

MrSID

MrSID (pronounced "Mister SID") is a format used for geo-referenced raster images that is highly compressed. The MrSID version of the facetized orthophotos are only about 5% of the size of their GeoTiff versions.

SHP

SHP (pronounced "shape") is a "de facto GIS standard" format native to ESRI GIS software. It can be consumed by a wide variety of ESRI and non-ESRI software packages.

Web feed

A web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. 

 Note: DWG, SHP, TIF, Mr. SID and ECW formats are projected in UTM zone10, NAD83 (CSRS). KML and CSV/XLS formats are projected in latitude, longitude (WGS84); this is relevant for CSV/XLS files only if they contain latitude and longitude.

Why are there two licences? 

On September 24, 2013, the City adopted the Open Government Licence – Vancouver. This licence is based on version 2.0 of the Open Government Licence – British Columbia, which was adapted from the Open Government Licence – Canada.

The Open Government Licence – Canada was developed through public consultation and collaborative efforts. As a result, this licence states terms for accessing and using government data that are consistent with those applied by several other Canadian government bodies. This consistency makes it easier for users to combine, integrate, and share data from multiple sources across Canada.

Before adopting this new licence, the City used the Archived Open Data Licence.

What licence applies?

Depending on when data was obtained from this website, a specific licence applies.

For data sets obtained:

  • On or after September 24, 2013, refer to the Open Government Licence – Vancouver
  • Before September 24, 2013, refer to the Archived Open Data Licence

How to link directly to this tab

To reference the licences on this tab for when you use datasets, use the vanity URL vancouver.ca/open-government-licence.

Open and accessible data

In May of 2009, Vancouver City Council passed a motion referred to as Open3 declaring that the City of Vancouver will endorse the principles of open and accessible data and will freely share with citizens, business, and other jurisdictions the greatest amount of data possible while respecting privacy and security concerns.

The data that people want

The City’s response to this motion involved an initial assessment of what data could and should be made available in the short-term. We identified data that was of most interest to the community and that had already been vetted through many of the legal, business, and technical processes required to make information publicly available. This turned out to be much of the spatial data that we currently publish through VanMap, which is our public mapping portal.

Publishing data

We then launched the Open Data website in September 2009 and have been adding new data to it since then.

In May of 2010, we developed a longer term plan for open data. The plan outlined short and long terms goals, including the publication of certain datasets, engagement with users of open data, and moving open data from project phase to an operational program.

City wins 2011 Most Innovative Organization in BC Award

BC Business recognized the City of Vancouver as the Most Innovative Organization in BC in 2011 for its open data initiative.

"... Our experts were unanimous in their view that the city’s open-data initiative – which aims to make the city’s vast trove of data publicly available online – is a true breakthrough."

First annual Open Data Hackathon

On February 23, 2013, we held an Open Data Hackathon to encourage citizens to write applications, liberate data, create visualizations, and publish analyses using open public data.

Learn more about the success of this annual event:

Improve access to government data

In September 2013, the City adopted the Canadian Open Government Licence (OGL). It gives users consistent terms for accessing and using government data, making it easier to combine, integrate, and share data from multiple providers across Canada. This is a major step towards encouraging wider use of open data and delivering more value to the public. Vancouver joins the Government of Canada, Provinces of BC, Alberta, and Ontario, and the cities of Nanaimo, Edmonton, and Toronto in adopting the OGL.

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