Nicknames of Vancouver
Encyclopedia
There are many nicknames for the city of Vancouver, the largest city in British Columbia and third-largest metropolitan area in Canada. Some reflect the city's climate, its geography, its economy, and its demographics. Others have their origins in cultural aspects of the city and its inhabitants. Vancouver is a relatively young city, and its nicknames continue to evolve.
Geography and climate
- Rain City - Vancouver receives on average 1,199mm of rainfall a year (YVR). Especially during the winter months, the city has a reputation for wet weather.
- Terminal City - refers to Vancouver (or specifically GastownGastownGastown is a national historic site in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the northeast end of Downtown adjacent to the Downtown Eastside. Its historical boundaries were the waterfront , Columbia Street, Hastings Street, and Cambie Street, which were the borders of the 1870 townsite survey, the proper...
) being the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific RailwayCanadian Pacific RailwayThe Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
.
Industry
- Hollywood NorthHollywood NorthHollywood North, an allusion to Hollywood, Los Angeles, United States, a notable film centre in the world, is a colloquialism used to describe film production industries and or film locations north of its namesake...
- the city is home to the third-largest film and television production industry in North America, after L.A. and New York.
Culture
- Vansterdam - Like AmsterdamAmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Vancouver has a reputation for lax attitudes towards recreational drug useRecreational drug useRecreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
, specifically marijuana.
- Lotusland - coined by Vancouver Sun writer Allan FotheringhamAllan FotheringhamAllan Fotheringham is a Canadian newspaper and magazine journalist. He is widely known by the nickname Dr. Foth and styles himself as, "Always controversial... never at a loss for words" and also as "the Great Gatheringfroth".-Life:Fotheringham attended Chilliwack Secondary School, where he was...
, Lotusland refers to Homer'sHomerIn the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
OdysseyOdysseyThe Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
, in which the hero, Odysseus, visits a land whose inhabitants are befuddled by a narcotic lotus (the "Land of the Lotus-EatersLotus-eatersIn Greek mythology, the lotus-eaters , also referred to as the lotophagi or lotophaguses or lotophages , were a race of people living on an island near North Africa dominated by lotus plants...
"). It sometimes is used to describe all of British Columbia.
- City of Glass - taken from the title of a Douglas CouplandDouglas CouplandDouglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist. His fiction is complemented by recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal training. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized terms such as McJob and...
bookCity of Glass (Douglas Coupland book)City of Glass is a book by Canadian author Douglas Coupland, published by Douglas and McIntyre in 2000, featuring short essays and photographs of his home town of Vancouver, British Columbia. Each essay deals with a different aspect of the city, such as the glass condominium towers which dominate...
, this name reflects the dominant steel-and-glass architectural aesthetic of the city's downtown.
Demographics
- Hongcouver - A name with some xenophobic connotations, it came into use in the 1980s and 1990s. Although Vancouver has had a large Asian community from its earliest days, the Chinese population surged as large numbers of Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
citizens immigrated prior to the British handover of that city in 1997.