A little closer
to the wild.

From the Pacific shore to the peaks of the Rockies. Explore 79 places across British Columbia, one photograph at a time.

Explore the map Find your next place

Ocean. Mountains. Everything between.Explore below

The whole province, on one map.

Pick a photograph. Follow a region. See where it takes you.

79 places to discover

50°N55°N60°N135°W130°W125°W120°W115°W Vancouver IslandVancouver, Coast & MountainsThompson OkanaganKootenay RockiesCariboo Chilcotin CoastNorthern British Columbia

Long Beach, Tofino

Victoria Inner Harbour

Cathedral Grove

Telegraph Cove

San Josef Bay, Cape Scott

Salt Spring Island

Hornby Island

Mystic Beach, Juan de Fuca

Stanley Park seawall

Whistler

Squamish and the Chief

Kelowna and Okanagan Lake

Naramata Bench

Osoyoos

Kamloops

Helmcken Falls, Wells Gray

Paint Pots, Kootenay National Park

Fernie

Revelstoke

Golden

Kaslo and the SS Moyie

Rainbow Range, Tweedsmuir

Great Bear Rainforest

Liard River Hot Springs

Kinuseo Falls, Tumbler Ridge

Salmon Glacier, Stewart

Elk Falls, Campbell River

Buttle Lake, Strathcona

Keremeos fruit stands

Mount Edziza

Wild Pacific Trail, Ucluelet

Gibsons

Chilko Lake

Botanical Beach

Princess Louisa Inlet

Tatshenshini-Alsek

Browse all 79

Area: 944,735 km²
Coastline: 25,725 km
Tourism regions: 6
Places here: 79
Widest point: 1,200 km
Highest peak: 4,671 m

Somewhere you haven’t been.

Coastal trails, mountain towns, and roads worth taking. Browse by region, or search for a place you have in mind.

Vancouver Island

12 places

460 km long. Rainforest on the west, the capital at the south tip, orcas up the east side.

Rick McCharles CC BY 2.0
San Josef Bay, Cape Scott
At the island's north tip, sea stacks on a beach you reach after a 2.5 km walk through Cape Scott Provincial Park.
50.673°N 128.340°W
www.wbayer.com - www.facebook.com/wbayercom CC0 1.0
Telegraph Cove
A boardwalk village on Johnstone Strait, where northern resident orcas pass Robson Bight every summer.
50.544°N 126.832°W
D-Stanley CC BY 2.0
Elk Falls, Campbell River
A 64-metre suspension bridge hangs 60 m above the canyon, facing the falls.
50.045°N 125.320°W
Richard Powell CC BY-SA 2.0
Buttle Lake, Strathcona
BC's oldest provincial park, from 1911. Buttle Lake runs down its middle; Della Falls is a two-day walk in.
49.650°N 125.600°W
GerryT CC BY 2.0
Hornby Island
Two ferries from Vancouver Island. Sandstone shaped by the sea at Helliwell, white sand at Tribune Bay.
49.523°N 124.671°W
David Abercrombie CC BY-SA 2.0
Cathedral Grove
Douglas firs up to 800 years old and 75 metres tall, a short walk from Highway 4 in MacMillan Provincial Park.
49.291°N 124.660°W
Andie CC BY 2.0
Long Beach, Tofino
Sixteen kilometres of open Pacific sand in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. Surf all year, storms to watch in winter.
49.090°N 125.770°W
Ruth and Dave CC BY 2.0
Wild Pacific Trail, Ucluelet
The trail runs the headland past the lighthouse, close enough to the open ocean to get wet in a storm.
48.933°N 125.550°W
Alex Beattie CC BY 2.0
Salt Spring Island
The largest of the Gulf Islands: the Saturday market in Ganges, farms, and views like this from Mount Maxwell over Burgoyne Bay.
48.817°N 123.500°W
Bernard McManus CC BY 2.0
Botanical Beach
Sandstone shelves at Port Renfrew that empty at low tide into pools of urchins, anemones and gooseneck barnacles.
48.533°N 124.450°W
Blake Handley CC BY 2.0
Victoria Inner Harbour
The capital's front porch: float planes landing beside the Legislature, water taxis, the Empress on the corner.
48.422°N 123.370°W
KaseyEriksen CC BY-SA 2.0
Mystic Beach, Juan de Fuca
A 2 km walk from the east end of the Juan de Fuca Trail near Sooke: a waterfall onto the sand and a rope swing.
48.370°N 123.900°W

Vancouver, Coast & Mountains

15 places

The city, the Sea to Sky, the Sunshine Coast and the Fraser Valley. Most of the people, and the fjords behind them.

Nicolas May CC BY-SA 4.0
Joffre Lakes
Three glacier-fed lakes, each bluer than the last, on a 10 km round trip off the Duffey Lake Road.
50.370°N 122.497°W
Theressa1976 CC BY-SA 4.0
Princess Louisa Inlet
A granite-walled inlet at the head of Jervis Inlet, reachable only by boat or floatplane, with Chatterbox Falls at its end.
50.200°N 123.780°W
jerryw387 CC BY 2.0
Desolation Sound
Warm water for this coast, no road in, and BC's largest marine park. Kayak in from Lund or Okeover.
50.150°N 124.680°W
Hyougushi CC BY-SA 2.0
Whistler
Two mountains, one village, and the largest ski area in North America.
50.116°N 122.957°W
(WT-shared) Shaund CC BY-SA 4.0
Lund
Where Highway 101 ends: a harbour, a bakery, and the water taxi to Savary Island.
49.980°N 124.760°W
kenshi-san CC BY 2.0
Garibaldi Lake
A 9 km climb from the highway to a turquoise lake under the Black Tusk, in Garibaldi Provincial Park.
49.933°N 123.017°W
blizzy63 Public domain (PDM) 1.0
Fraser Canyon
The river squeezes to 33 metres wide at Hell's Gate and runs deep and fast. The road and two railways share the walls.
49.783°N 121.450°W
Miranda.Kopetzky CC BY-SA 4.0
Skookumchuck Narrows
On a big tide Sechelt Inlet pours through a gap a hundred metres wide, raising standing waves that kayakers surf.
49.740°N 123.890°W
Trougnouf CC BY 4.0
Squamish and the Chief
Howe Sound from the top of the Stawamus Chief, a 700-metre granite wall you can walk up the back of in a few hours.
49.683°N 123.150°W
GoToVan from Vancouver, Canada CC BY 2.0
Golden Ears
Second-growth forest and glacier-fed pools an hour from Vancouver, under the twin summits the park is named for.
49.400°N 122.480°W
SqueakyMarmot CC BY-SA 2.0
Gibsons
First stop on the Sunshine Coast, forty minutes by ferry from Horseshoe Bay. The harbour is still a working one.
49.399°N 123.506°W
simra CC BY 2.0
Stanley Park seawall
Nine kilometres of seawall around a 400-hectare forest at the end of downtown Vancouver.
49.302°N 123.142°W
GoToVan CC BY 2.0
Harrison Hot Springs
A lake 60 km long with a hot-spring village at its south end, 90 minutes from Vancouver.
49.300°N 121.780°W
SqueakyMarmot CC BY-SA 2.0
Steveston
The fishing harbour at the mouth of the Fraser. Boats sell the catch off the dock; the cannery is a museum now.
49.125°N 123.183°W
GoToVan CC BY 2.0
Manning Park
Where the Cascades cross the border: subalpine meadows that flower in July, and the north end of the Pacific Crest Trail.
49.067°N 120.783°W

Thompson Okanagan

14 places

Dry hills, long lakes, vineyards and a desert. The warm interior.

Tim Gouw punttim CC0 1.0
Mount Robson
The highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, 3,954 m, in full view from the highway. The Berg Lake trail starts at its foot.
53.110°N 119.150°W
William Redmond CC BY 3.0
Helmcken Falls, Wells Gray
Helmcken Falls drops 141 metres into its own canyon. Wells Gray has 39 named waterfalls and few crowds.
51.957°N 120.179°W
Peter Sircom Bromley CC BY-SA 4.0
Adams River
Every four years the sockeye return in the millions and turn the river red between Shuswap and Adams Lake.
50.893°N 119.582°W
jhopkins CC BY 2.0
Sun Peaks
Canada's second-largest ski area, 45 minutes from Kamloops, with a village you ski through.
50.883°N 119.900°W
Ruth and Dave CC BY 2.0
Shuswap Lake
A lake shaped like an H with 1,000 km of shoreline. Sicamous calls itself the houseboat capital of Canada.
50.850°N 119.000°W
Miranda.Kopetzky CC BY-SA 4.0
Kamloops
Grassland hills where the North and South Thompson meet. Dry, open, and nothing like the coast.
50.675°N 120.327°W
Ruth and Dave CC BY 2.0
Silver Star
A ski hill above Vernon with a village painted like a gold-rush town, and lift-served riding all summer.
50.358°N 119.062°W
Murray Foubister CC BY-SA 2.0
Kalamalka Lake
The lake that changes colour through the summer as marl settles out of the water, south of Vernon.
50.200°N 119.300°W
Joli Rumi CC BY-SA 4.0
Kelowna and Okanagan Lake
Vineyards, orchards and a 135 km lake in the middle of the Okanagan. The Interior's biggest city.
49.888°N 119.496°W
mastermaq CC BY-SA 2.0
Myra Canyon
Eighteen timber trestles and two tunnels on the old Kettle Valley rail grade, 900 m above Kelowna. Rebuilt after the 2003 fire.
49.812°N 119.319°W
Ruth and Dave CC BY 2.0
Naramata Bench
A bench of vineyards above Okanagan Lake, joined up by the old Kettle Valley rail grade you can cycle.
49.595°N 119.590°W
Judy Gallagher CC BY 2.0
Vaseux Lake
A shallow lake under the Okanagan's cliffs, a bird sanctuary where California bighorn come down to drink.
49.280°N 119.530°W
CK Golf CC BY-SA 2.0
Keremeos fruit stands
Two dozen stands along Highway 3 through the Similkameen, open from the first cherries to the last squash.
49.205°N 119.830°W
Hardo Müller CC BY-SA 2.0
Osoyoos
Canada's only desert town: sagebrush, antelope brush, and the warmest lake in the country.
49.032°N 119.468°W

Kootenay Rockies

13 places

Four national parks, the Columbia, a sternwheeler and ski towns along the Alberta border.

JZ85 CC BY 3.0
Emerald Lake, Yoho
The colour is glacial rock flour, the canoes are red, and the trail around the lake is 5 km.
51.443°N 116.530°W
SqueakyMarmot CC BY-SA 2.0
Golden
The Kicking Horse runs through town under a timber-frame pedestrian bridge, the longest of its kind in Canada.
51.300°N 116.960°W
amanderson2 CC BY 2.0
Rogers Pass
The Trans-Canada climbs to 1,330 m through Glacier National Park. Snowsheds and avalanche control keep it open all winter.
51.300°N 117.520°W
Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungato) Photo gallery CC BY 2.5
Paint Pots, Kootenay National Park
Ochre beds the Ktunaxa collected for pigment, on a short trail off Highway 93.
51.175°N 116.124°W
Ruth and Dave CC BY 2.0
Revelstoke
The Columbia valley from Mount Revelstoke, whose parkway climbs from town to alpine meadows.
51.000°N 118.200°W
Edna Winti CC BY 2.0
Mount Assiniboine
The Matterhorn of the Rockies, seen across Lake Magog on the BC side of the divide. Reached on foot or by helicopter, never by road.
50.910°N 115.650°W
Laurel F CC BY-SA 2.0
The Bugaboos
Granite spires that pull climbers from everywhere. The Conrad Kain Hut sits under them at 2,230 m.
50.750°N 116.750°W
Fil.Al CC BY 2.0
Nakusp Hot Springs
Two pools fed from a creek in the Selkirks, twelve kilometres up a road from a village on the Arrow Lakes.
50.240°N 117.800°W
BriYYZ CC BY-SA 2.0
Kaslo and the SS Moyie
An 1898 sternwheeler beached on Kootenay Lake, the oldest intact passenger sternwheeler in the world.
49.910°N 116.910°W
Rowanharris5 CC BY-SA 4.0
Valhalla Park
Granite walls rising straight out of the west shore of Slocan Lake, in a park with no road into it.
49.800°N 117.550°W
Dietmar Rabich CC BY-SA 4.0
Fort Steele
An 1860s gold-rush town above the Kootenay River, kept as it stood rather than rebuilt.
49.620°N 115.630°W
Holger Steinhaus CC BY-SA 3.0
Fernie
A coal town turned ski town in the Elk Valley, with the Lizard Range at the end of every street.
49.504°N 115.063°W
blizzy63 Public domain (PDM) 1.0
Nelson
A 1965 postcard of Baker Street. The heritage brick is still there, and so is the mountain behind it.
49.493°N 117.295°W

Cariboo Chilcotin Coast

9 places

Gold-rush country, the Chilcotin plateau and the fjords at Bella Coola. Big and mostly empty.

Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer)CC BY 4.0
Bowron Lake circuit
A 116 km canoe circuit that closes on itself: six lakes, the rivers between them, and about a week of paddling.
53.150°N 121.250°W
blizzy63 Public domain (PDM) 1.0
Barkerville
A gold-rush town from 1862, kept with more than 100 buildings, on a 1958 postcard.
53.068°N 121.518°W
Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer)CC BY 4.0
Quesnel
Where the Quesnel meets the Fraser, the river junction that fed the Cariboo gold rush.
52.980°N 122.490°W
D-Stanley CC BY 2.0
Rainbow Range, Tweedsmuir
Volcanic peaks in red, yellow and purple, in the largest provincial park in BC.
52.500°N 125.900°W
Christopher Michel CC BY 2.0
Bella Coola
A fjord valley at the end of Highway 20, which drops 1,500 metres off the plateau on gravel grades of 18 percent.
52.373°N 126.756°W
A.Davey CC BY 2.0
Ocean Falls
A company town on Cousins Inlet left to the rain when the mill closed. A few dozen people still live under the dam.
52.350°N 127.690°W
Murray Foubister CC BY-SA 2.0
Nimpo Lake
Floatplane country on the Chilcotin plateau, the last lake before Highway 20 drops to Bella Coola.
52.340°N 125.130°W
D-Stanley CC BY 2.0
Farwell Canyon
The Chilcotin River cuts through hoodoos and a sand dune here, crossed by a single-lane bridge.
51.660°N 122.420°W
Sam Beebe CC BY 2.0
Chilko Lake
Turquoise with rock flour and 1,170 m up, one of the highest large lakes on the continent, in Ts'yl-os Provincial Park.
51.450°N 124.100°W

Northern British Columbia

16 places

Half the province. Haida Gwaii, the Alaska Highway, the Peace and Mount Robson.

Ukeedukee CC BY 2.0
Atlin
BC's most north-westerly town, on a lake 137 km long, reached by road only through the Yukon.
59.580°N 133.690°W
Diego Delso CC BY-SA 4.0
Tatshenshini-Alsek
The province's far northwest corner, a wilderness of braided glacial rivers running to the Gulf of Alaska.
59.500°N 137.500°W
Qyd CC BY-SA 3.0
Liard River Hot Springs
Pools at 42 to 52°C in a boreal swamp, a boardwalk from the Alaska Highway. Open all year.
59.426°N 126.101°W
tuchodi CC BY-SA 2.0
Muncho Lake
Jade green from rock flour, 12 km long, right beside the Alaska Highway.
58.980°N 125.770°W
Here fishy CC BY-SA 3.0
Mount Edziza
A shield volcano with cinder cones in red and black around its flanks. No road goes there; you walk or you fly.
57.717°N 130.633°W
tuchodi CC BY-SA 2.0
Peace River country
The Peace flows east out of the Rockies through farmland. The only part of BC on the prairie side of the mountains.
56.250°N 120.850°W
Church of emacs CC BY-SA 4.0
Salmon Glacier, Stewart
The fifth-largest glacier in Canada, from a gravel road above Stewart that crosses into Alaska and back.
56.180°N 130.050°W
Owen CC BY-SA 3.0
'Ksan, Hazelton
A rebuilt Gitxsan village at the meeting of the Skeena and the Bulkley, poles facing the river.
55.250°N 127.670°W
Iain Cameron CC BY 2.0
Nisga'a lava beds
Lava from an eruption around 1700 that killed some 2,000 Nisga'a. Canada's youngest lava flow, now a memorial park.
55.100°N 128.900°W
Susan Clarke CC BY 2.0
Kinuseo Falls, Tumbler Ridge
Sixty-eight metres, taller than Niagara, in Monkman Provincial Park. The town has dinosaur trackways and a UNESCO Global Geopark.
54.980°N 120.900°W
Shawn CC BY-SA 2.0
Smithers
Hudson Bay Mountain over a town that decided in the 1970s to look alpine. Fly fishing on the Bulkley.
54.780°N 127.170°W
A.Davey CC BY 2.0
Prince Rupert
The wettest city in Canada and a deep ice-free harbour, 16 hours by ferry from Port Hardy.
54.315°N 130.321°W
Mike Hochachka CC BY-SA 4.0
Prince George
Northern lights over the city where the Nechako meets the Fraser, at the centre of the province.
53.917°N 122.750°W
Murray Foubister CC BY-SA 2.0
Haida Gwaii
Islands 100 km off the coast, home of the Haida for at least 13,000 years. This is the beach on Graham Island's north shore.
53.850°N 132.100°W
Ruth and Dave CC BY 2.0
Great Bear Rainforest
A white black bear, the Kermode or spirit bear, lives almost nowhere else. The rainforest covers 6.4 million hectares.
52.590°N 128.520°W
Christine Rondeau from Vancouver, Canada CC BY 2.0
SGang Gwaay
At the south end of Haida Gwaii, the poles of a Haida village left standing to return to the forest.
52.095°N 131.220°W

About this map

A map of British Columbia built with care for the actual geography: every boundary is the province's own, every place sits at its true coordinates, and every photograph is credited. An independent project.

The page follows day and night in Vancouver. Use the switch above to see either mood, whenever you visit.

Two maps are on this page. The one that loads first is drawn here from the province's open data (tourism regions, lakes, coastline) and projected into BC Albers, the coordinate system the province's own surveyors use; it is also the picture that gets shared and the icon in your tab. The one you can fly around is Mapbox terrain with those same provincial boundaries laid over it, so the regions you see are the real ones, not an approximation.

Built by westcode.io, a two-person studio: Loic in Kelowna, Leif in Vancouver. We live here. This was made for the love of the place and the people in it: the ones who run the lodges and the ferries and the fruit stands, who plough the passes at four in the morning, and everyone who drives half a day to stand on a particular beach.

We design brands and build the websites, apps and tools behind them. If you look after a region, a town or a destination and want a map of your own, talk to us.

Sources

Tourism regions: Province of British Columbia, ADM_TOURISM_REGIONS_SP, BC Data Catalogue. Open Government Licence, British Columbia.
Lakes: Province of British Columbia, EAUBC Lakes, filtered to 50 km² and above, simplified to 250 m. Open Government Licence, British Columbia.
Coastline, borders, rivers: Natural Earth 1:10m. Public domain.
Terrain and base map: Mapbox, OpenStreetMap contributors.
Photographs: Creative Commons and public domain only, licences that permit commercial use and adaptation. Each is credited on its card and listed in full on the credits page.
Projection: The drawn map is NAD83 / BC Albers, EPSG:3005, the projection the province uses. The live map is Web Mercator, as Mapbox serves it.
Place coordinates: Set by hand and checked against OpenStreetMap. Each place is assigned to its region by testing its coordinates against the province's own boundary polygons, not by hand.

A little closerto the wild.