Open data

Open data is structured information that's anonymized (not personally identifiable), free, and available to everyone.

New Open Data Portal

Explore, search, filter, and visualize datasets with maps or charts – right in your browser – whether you're a novice or expert.

Export data in popular formats or consume them using an application programming interface (API).

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Legacy Open Data Catalogue

On February 24, 2020, we will retire the legacy catalogue and no longer maintain its datasets. Update your bookmarks and application connections to the new portal.

Open the legacy catalogue

Updated Council budget and expenses data set

December 5, 2019 - Updated Council budget and expenses data set to include 2019 third-quarter data.

Learn more and download the data set

LiDAR 2018 dataset

November 22, 2019 - Added LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) 2018 data in LAS format. Data products include "bare earth" ground surface and of the upper most surface defined by vegetation cover, buildings, and other structures.

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Updated Council budget and expenses dataset

September 27, 2019 - Updated Council budget and expenses data set to include 2019 second-quarter data. Data is available in CSV, XLS, and XML formats

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Updated business licence dataset

July 11, 2019 - Updated data files starting from 2017 to remove the names of the licence holders from short term rental business licence category. Data is available in CSV, JSON, XLS, and XML formats

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Updated Council budget and expenses dataset

May 30, 2019 - Updated Council budget and expenses dataset to include 2019 first-quarter data. Data is available in CSV, XLS, and XML formats.

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Updated Council expenses and employee remuneration datasets

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

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

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Anonymous ballot marking dataset

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.

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Updated Council budget and expenses dataset

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

Learn more and download the dataset

Previous updates

LiDAR 2018 dataset

November 22, 2019 - Added LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) 2018 data in LAS format. Data products include "bare earth" ground surface and of the upper most surface defined by vegetation cover, buildings, and other structures.

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Updated municipal election results dataset and voting places dataset

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

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

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Updated Council budget and expenses dataset

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

Learn more and download the dataset

Updated non-market housing projects dataset

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

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Updated Council expenses, employee remuneration, and business licence datasets

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Improved bikeways data

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

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Improved public art data and updated parking tickets data

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

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

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Updated municipal election results dataset and voting places dataset

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

Learn more and download the dataset

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

Learn more and download the dataset

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.

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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.

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Updated Council expenses data and employee remuneration data

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

Learn more and download the dataset

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

Learn more and download the dataset

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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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".

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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 dataset within two business days of publishing the meeting minutes. Data is available in CSV and XLS formats.

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New and improved crime data

December 8, 2015 – Improved crime data to include more crime types with weekly data refresh cycle. Data provided is based upon information contained in the VPD Records Management System. All coordinates data in this dataset must be considered offset. Users should not interpret any locations as related to a specific person or specific property. Please review the data description page and the contained legal disclaimer before using the data. Data is available in XLS, CSV, JSON, and SHP formats.

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Orthophotos 2013 and improved awarded contracts data

December 1, 2015 – Added orthophotos for 2013 and they are in our highest resolution quality to date (7.5 cm). Orthophotos from 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011 are also available in high quality 10 cm pixel resolution. 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.

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Updated and improved awarded contracts data to include all data since year 2012 in one data file per file format. Data is available in XLS and CSV formats.

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Historical business licences and 2015 cultural spaces

October 29, 2015 – In addition to publishing business licence data for the current year, we have added all business licences that were recorded since 1997. This data was extracted between October 19 to 20 and will remain static, except for the immediate past two years which will be updated monthly. Business licences in the current year will continue to be refreshed daily. All data is available in XML, XLS, CSV, and JSON formats.

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Added 2015 cultural spaces data from the arts and cultural community survey result, organized by Cultural Services. This dataset is updated annually and is available in XLS and CSV formats.

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Wayfinding map stands and improved election results data descriptions

September 23, 2015 – Added pedestrian-oriented wayfinding map stands dataset.

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Improved data descriptions for 2014 election and added data description for all election years prior to 2014.

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Digital elevation model 2013

August 19, 2015 – Added a digital elevation model of the city generated from 2013 LiDAR data in 1-meter resolution.

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Building footprints 2009 and improved food vendors data

August 11, 2015 – Added generalized building footprints of the city generated from 2009 LiDAR data.

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Improved food vendors dataset with more attributes, data descriptions and data formats

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LiDAR 2013

June 4, 2015 – Added LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) 2013 data in LAS format. Data products include "bare earth" ground surface and of the upper most surface defined by vegetation cover, buildings, and other structures.

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Goad's Fire Insurance Map 1912 (georectified) and improved heritage property data

May 21, 2015 – Added digitized Goad’s fire insurance maps that show the location, building materials and footprint of buildings; the original water line where it differs from the 1912 shoreline; some proposed developments; electoral wards; legal land descriptions; lot sizes; street and lane widths; and old street names that had been recently changed. Georectification was performed in December 2014 and imagery files are available in ECW and TIFF formats.

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Improved heritage property dataset with more attributes, data descriptions, and data formats.

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Property tax data from 2006

March 2, 2015 – We enhanced the property tax dataset with data from 2006 to 2013. The data was extracted on January 31, 2015 and included all tax-roll revisions up to that date. We started capturing year-end data at the end of 2014 as a new annual process. Current year data is refreshed weekly but data published for previous years remains static.

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2014 Vancouver municipal election results dataset

November 19, 2014 – Added the official results for the 2014 municipal election.

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Changes to voting division boundaries and voting places datasets

September 15, 2014 – Changed the voting division boundaries dataset to static because Vancouver voters can now vote at any voting place in the city, eliminating the need for voting divisions. Also updated and improved voting places dataset.

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Improved property tax report dataset

September 3, 2014 – Improved data and descriptions of the property tax report dataset with two new data fields.

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Water (fire) hydrants

August 26, 2014 – Added dataset on locations and attributes of water (fire) hydrants in the city. Data is available in CSV, XLS, DWG, KML, and SHP formats.

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Cultural spaces

June 3, 2014 – Added dataset on locations and attributes of cultural spaces. Data is available in CSV and XLS formats.

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City Council meeting minutes – archival data

April 14, 2014 – Added City Council meeting minutes and reports for all of the meetings held in the 1970s. Data is available in text (TXT) format and will be refreshed as optical character recognition (OCR) errors are corrected.

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Improved data for Council contact information and food asset dataset

February 21, 2014 – Improved City Council contact information dataset with nine additional data fields.

Updated and added coordinates data to community garden and fruit tree dataset.

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View more updates

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.

Learn more about DWG

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.

Learn more about GeoJSON

JSON

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

Learn more about JSON

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.

Learn more about KML

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.

Learn more about SHP

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.

Learn more about web feeds

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

Open Government Licence – Vancouver
The Open Government Licence – Vancouver is based on version 2.0 of the Open Government Licence – British Columbia, which was developed through public consultation and collaborative efforts by the provincial and federal government. The only substantive change to the licence is references to the Province of British Columbia are replaced with the City of Vancouver.

You are encouraged to use the Information that is available under this licence with only a few conditions.

Using information under this licence
1. Use of any Information indicates your acceptance of the terms below.
2. The Information Provider grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the Information, including for commercial purposes, subject to the terms below.
You are free to:
1. Copy, modify, publish, translate, adapt, distribute or otherwise use the Information in any medium, mode or format for any lawful purpose.
You must, where you do any of the above:
1. Acknowledge the source of the Information by including any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider and, where possible, provide a link to this licence.
  If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, or if you are using information from several information providers and multiple attributions are not practical for your product or application, you must use the following attribution statement:
  
  Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver.
2. The terms of this licence are important, and if you fail to comply with any of them, the rights granted to you under this licence, or any similar licence granted by the Information Provider, will end automatically.
Exemptions
1. This licence does not grant you any right to use:
  1. Personal Information
  2. Information or Records not accessible under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (B.C.)
  3. Third party rights the Information Provider is not authorized to licence
  4. The names, crests, logos, or other official marks of the Information Provider
  5. Information subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents, trade-marks and official marks
Non-endorsement
1. This licence does not grant you any right to use the Information in a way that suggests any official status or that the Information Provider endorses you or your use of the Information.
No warranty
1. The Information is licensed “as is”, and the Information Provider excludes all representations, warranties, obligations, and liabilities, whether express or implied, to the maximum extent permitted by law.
2. The Information Provider is not liable for any errors or omissions in the Information, and will not under any circumstances be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or other loss, injury or damage caused by its use or otherwise arising in connection with this licence or the Information, even if specifically advised of the possibility of such loss, injury or damage.
Governing law
1. This licence is governed by the laws of the province of British Columbia and the applicable laws of Canada.
2. Legal proceedings related to this licence may only be brought in the courts of British Columbia.
Definitions
1. In this licence, the terms below have the following meanings:
  - "Information" means information resources or Records protected by copyright or other information or Records that is/are offered for use under the terms of this licence.
  - "Information Provider" means The City of Vancouver.
  - “Personal Information” has the meaning set out in Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (B.C.) .
  - “Records” has the meaning set out in section 29 of the Interpretation Act (B.C.) .
  - "You" means the natural or legal person, or body of persons corporate or incorporate, acquiring rights under this licence.
Versioning
1. This is version 1.0 of the Open Government Licence - Vancouver. The Information Provider may make changes to the terms of this licence from time to time and issue a new version of the licence. Your use of the Information will be governed by the terms of the licence in force as of the date you accessed the Information.
Archived Open Data Licence

By accessing the open data datasets, you agree to these Terms of Use, which are intended to protect and promote the City's commitments to open data and ensure that the recipients of these datasets give back to the community the benefits they derive from these datasets. If you have any questions or comments about these Terms of Use, please contact 3-1-1.

For further certainty, this open data section of these Terms of Use apply only to the open data datasets portions of this site and apply to the exclusion of the other sections of these Terms of Use which limit your rights of use to the information on this site. However, all other sections of this Terms of Use which protect the City from legal proceedings and limit the City’s liability apply equally to your use of the open data datasets.

Your Open Licence to the datasets

The City now grants you a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use, modify, and distribute the datasets in all current and future media and formats for any lawful purpose. You now acknowledge that this licence does not give you a copyright or other proprietary interest in the datasets.

If you distribute or provide access to these datasets to any other person, whether in original or modified form, you agree to include a copy of, or this uniform resource locator (URL) for, this open data section of these Terms of Use and to ensure they agree to and are bound by them but without introducing any further restrictions of any kind.

Giving the City credit

Although you are not required to credit the City for each use or reproduction of the open data datasets, you are entitled to do so and encouraged to conspicuously announce that these datasets are publicly available from the City under these Terms of Use. Upon the request of the City, you may be required to remove a credit from future uses or reproductions should the City decide that such credit is not in the public interest.

No endorsement

You may not publicly represent or imply that the City is participating in, or has sponsored, approved, or endorsed the manner or purpose of, your use or reproduction of the open data datasets.

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.

Read the motion (23 KB)

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."

Read the rest of the article in BC Business

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.