Chinese Canadians are a sizable part of the population in Greater Vancouver, especially in the Chinese communities in the city of Vancouver and the adjoining suburban city of Richmond. The legacy of Chinese immigration is prevalent throughout the Vancouver area.Cernetig, Miro. "Chinese Vancouver: A decade of change" (Archive). Vancouver Sun. Saturday June 30, 2007. Retrieved on October 27, 2014. "Twenty years later, China's influence seems to be everywhere and people often take it for granted." (check the context around the sentence; Cernetig is not talking about the Mainland Chinese government) and "While Chinese in Toronto and Los Angeles tend to congregate in certain areas, says Yu, it is clear that every neighbourhood and school district in Vancouver has a large contingent of Chinese. It is now the norm."

Chinese Canadians have been a presence in Vancouver since its 1886 incorporation. Shifts in the economy of smaller towns in British Columbia and immigration caused the size of Vancouver's ethnic Chinese community to increase. Like those of other areas of North America, Vancouver's initial Chinese population was mainly from Guangdong province.

A new wave of immigration started in the middle of the 20th century, continuing to the present. The first wave originated from Hong Kong, and subsequent waves of immigration from Taiwan and Mainland China changed the composition of the Chinese community.

With the community rapidly growing, by the 2021 Canadian census, Chinese Canadians enumerated 512,260, or 19.38%, of the metropolitan area's total population.

History

Early history There were 114 Chinese in the Burrard Inlet area in 1884. The population included 60 sawmill hands, 30 cooks and washing persons, ten store clerks, five merchants, three married women, and one prostitute.Yee, p. 17 The sawmill hands worked at Hasting's Sawmill. Additional Chinese settled an area north of False Creek after an 1885 announcement that the terminus of the railway was to be extended to that area.Ng, p. 29. Former railroad workers caused Vancouver's population to increase.Yee, p. 18.

The city of Vancouver incorporated in April 1886; at the time, the city had a pre-existing Chinese population.Johnson, p. 120. The Chinese coming to Vancouver had originated from Guangdong.Yee, p. 5. Many Chinese worked at Hastings Sawmill upon arrival, and many Chinese worked in logging camps, mills, and in forest-clearing crews. Property owners hired Chinese to clear forests because the Chinese were the cheapest laborers available.Yee, p. 21.

Vancouver gained the Chinese name Erbu,Lai, David Chuenyan. Chinatowns: Towns within Cities in Canada. UBC Press, October 1, 2007. , 9780774844185. p. 81. which means "Second Port". However New Westminster also had the name "Erbu".Lai, David Chuenyan. Chinatowns: Towns within Cities in Canada. UBC Press, October 1, 2007. , 9780774844185. p. 49. To disambiguate the two cities, Chinese persons referred to Vancouver as Xianshui Erbu, which means "the Second Port on Brackish Water". This name was used in place of Erbu and continues to be used as of 2007. But these namings are rendered in Mandarin (pinyin Romanization) so are not the pronunciation of Cantonese speaking early Southeast Asian settlers. Vancouver gained the Cantonese name of Saltwater City: haam sui fau (xian shui bu <Mandarin).

Discriminatory actions against Chinese occurred early in the city's history, including mob violence, newspaper articles asking for preventing Chinese from living in Vancouver, and post-Great Vancouver Fire street resolutions asking for preventing the return of the Chinese. In the period's newspaper articles, according to James Morton, author of In the Sea of Sterile Mountains, "anti-Chinese sentiment appeared to be unanimous".Morton, p. 149. The practice of contractors hiring labour crews of only one race had caused the wage disparity between whites and Chinese, and according to Paul Yee, author of Saltwater City: Story of Vancouver's Chinese Community, the lower pay of the Chinese workers was the "classic explanation" for anti-Chinese sentiment among whites. Morton stated that "Greedy speculators" had chosen to use Chinese labourers despite the abundance of White labourers.Morton, p. 151. "Although the disgraceful action of Vancouverites could not be excused, greedy speculators contributed to the unpleasant scene by taking advantage of cheap Chinese labour. There was no shortage of white labour at the time." Some historians argued that whites desiring a racially homogenous White Canada was another strong factor in anti-Chinese sentiment.Yee, p. 26. In early 1886 one party in the mayoral election in Vancouver prevented Chinese people (i.e. “Chinamen” in the vernacular of the day, with other negative epithets such as Chinks and Celestials) from voting.

In 1900, there were 36 Chinese laundries in Chinatown. The city government had passed a law in 1893 that the section of Pender Street between Carrall and Columbia was the only place which could have laundry businesses; Paul Yee stated that enforcement of this law was very difficult. Therefore, in 1900, the permitted zone had only two Chinese laundries. The city government later passed laws that harmed smaller Chinese laundries to benefit white-owned laundries. The Chinese hired Wilson V. Sekler, a lawyer, to get the laws overturned.Yee, p. 24.

20th and 21st centuries

In 1907, the Asiatic Exclusion League sponsored a parade in Vancouver that opposed persons of Asian origin. This parade developed into a riot that caused damage to Vancouver's Chinatown and Japantown.Lim, Imogene L. "Pacific Entry, Pacific Century: Chinatowns and Chinese Canadian History" (Chapter 2). In: Lee, Josephine D., Imogene L. Lim, and Yuko Matsukawa (editors). Re/collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History. Temple University Press. , 9781439901205. Start: 15. CITED: p. 17

The 1911 census stated that Vancouver had 3,559 Chinese, giving it the largest Chinese population in all of Canada. Around that year 3,500 persons alone lived in Vancouver's Chinatown, and it was Canada's largest Chinatown."1886 - 1920" (Archive). Vancouver Chinatown 1886-2011. Simon Fraser University. Retrieved on December 27, 2014. According to the census, Vancouver's Chinese population increased to 6,500, including about 600 women and over 500 children attending public schools, due to immigration from 1911-1914 and in the immediate post-World War I period, by 1921. A 1919 missionary report stated that of Vancouver's Chinese, 7% were born in Canada, and that there were a total of 210 Chinese families.Ng, p. 14. The Chinese community was served by six schools and one hospital by the 1920s. During the same decade, the community had two Chinese theatres providing recreation."Seeking a New Home" (Archive). Royal BC Museum. Retrieved on January 27, 2015.

As part of the Great Depression, many Chinese began leaving small towns and settling in Vancouver and Victoria. In 1931 the Chinese populations of Vancouver and Victoria combined became more numerous than the Chinese elsewhere in British Columbia.Ng, p. 147. "19 In 1931, for the first time, more Chinese in British Columbia reportedly resided in the two cities of Vancouver and Victoria than in the scattered smaller settlements in the province. Wickberg, From China to Canada, 303-4, Tables 7 and 8."

In the mid-20th Century Chinese began moving from smaller British Columbia towns to Vancouver and eastern Canada because of the collapse of some of British Columbia's agricultural industries. The rise of agricultural operations in the United States in the market in the 1950s made local British Columbia market gardening unprofitable, and this deprived Chinese remaining in the province's interior of their livelihood."III. THE CHINESE: Early 1900s - 1930s" (Archive). Living Landscapes, Royal BC Museum. Retrieved on February 16, 2015. The consequence was a decline in small town Chinese populations that began in that decade. In 1961-1962 about 18,000 ethnic Chinese were resident in the Vancouver area.Willmott, "Some Aspects of Chinese Communities in British Columbia Towns," p. 27-28.

Some Mainland Chinese were fleeing political developments in the mid-20th century, while tensions between the Mainland and Taiwan resulted in some Taiwanese moving to Vancouver. In the late 1980s and 1990s, a wave of Chinese from Hong Kong came to Vancouver, prompted by anxieties related to the upcoming 1997 Handover of Hong Kong.Marlow, Iain and Brent Jang. "Vancouver’s real estate boom: The rising price of ‘heaven’." The Globe and Mail. Friday October 10, 2014. Retrieved on March 28, 2015. "The twentieth century's geopolitical turmoil sent wave after wave[...]sought a more stable home ahead of the 1997 handover." Levels of Chinese coming from Hong Kong declined after the handover occurred.Bhatty, Ayesha. "Canada prepares for an Asian future" (Archive). BBC. May 25, 2012. Retrieved on October 20, 2014. "Mandarin is edging out Cantonese on the streets of the city."

Vivienne Poy wrote that instances of antagonism towards Chinese and incidents of racial hatred targeting Chinese occurred by the late 1980s.Poy, Vivienne. Passage to Promise Land: Voices of Chinese Immigrant Women to Canada. McGill-Queen's Press (MQUP), Apr 1, 2013. , 9780773588400. Google Books p. PT22 (page unspecified). "A potential real-estate buyer was spat at by the person living next door, and "Hong-couver" T-shirts were sold everywhere."

Geography

As of 2011, there were over 450,000 people of Chinese descent in Greater Vancouver."Vancouver’s Chinese flock to Christianity more than Buddhism" (Archive). The Vancouver Sun. February 5, 2011. Retrieved on October 22, 2014. Vancouver received the title of being, outside of Asia, the "most Asian city" due to its large Chinese population.FlorCruz, Michelle. "Vancouver Anti-Chinese-Language Movement Focused On Chinese Language Signs, Advertisements" (Archive). International Business Times. July 17, 2014. Retrieved on October 20, 2014. Vancouver had Chinese residents when the city was founded in 1886. People with origins from Hong Kong "have been especially notable in the flow of international migrants to British Columbia which, for all intents and purposes, has meant the Vancouver region."Johnson, P. 120.

Significant Chinese populations are located in all Greater Vancouver neighbourhoods. Richmond, in Greater Vancouver, had more Chinese residents than White Canadian residents in 2013, and has been described as "the most Chinese city in North America."Young, Ian. "Chinese numbers in Vancouver, Toronto to double by 2031." South China Morning Post. Saturday April 6, 2013. Updated Tuesday April 9, 2013. Print title: "Chinese in two cities to double by 2031." Retrieved on October 20, 2014.

Geography by city There are people of Chinese ethnicity located throughout the city of Vancouver.Bloemraad, p. 62. "As evident in Map 2.2, those of Chinese ethnicity are dispersed throughout the city,[...]" 40% of the residents of a large portion of Southeast Vancouver are Chinese. The Granville and 49th area within South Vancouver also has a Chinese population.Todd, Douglas. "Mapping our ethnicity Part 2: China comes to Richmond" (Archive). Vancouver Sun. May 2, 2012. Retrieved on October 24, 2014. "Ethnic Chinese are also focused in south Vancouver around Granville and 49th, in central Burnaby around Kensington and Halifax streets and in pockets of northern Coquitlam." The Vancouver Chinatown is the largest Chinatown in Canada.Kurenoff, Gord. "Of restaurants and renewal in Vancouver’s modern Chinatown" (Archive). Vancouver Sun. October 20, 2014. Retrieved on February 16, 2015. "These are all indications that the revitalization project for Canada's largest Chinatown now appears back on track after an intense decade of uncertainty and negative headlines, including detrimental reports of a mass exodus for Richmond's newer Golden Village."