BRITISH COLUMBIA 



932 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 



OE 



1 ./PTTTQTT COLUMBIA, the [ 



westernmost province of the Do- 

 minion of Canada. Though it has many 

 pleasant valleys, whose fertility is one of its 

 greatest assets, the province is essentially a 

 mountainous region. It has been called a 

 "sea of mountains" and the "Switzerland of 

 America," though it is twenty-two times as 

 large as the latter country. Almost the en- 

 tire width of the great Cordilleras, the back- 

 bone of the continent, lies within the prov- 

 ince, and the whole province, except the 

 northeast corner, is included in the mountain 

 system. Mining, fishing and lumbering are 

 the main industries. Trapping and fur-trading, 

 which originally brought the white man to 

 this region, are no longer of first importance, 

 but mining, which led to permanent settle- 

 ments, is still the most profitable industry. 



Area and Population. British Columbia has 

 a total area of 355,855 square miles, nearly 

 one-tenth of the entire Dominion. Until 1912 

 it was the largest province, but in that year 

 the extension of the boundaries of Ontario 

 and Quebec 

 placed it third in 

 size. It has five 

 times the area of 

 the state of 

 Washington, 

 which adjoins it 

 on the south, and 

 about five and 

 one-half times 

 the area of all 



LOCATION MAP 

 Comparative size with re- 



the ent;ire Domin i n. 



- the New England s ^ct 

 states. If it were 

 placed bodily on top of the United States 

 it would extend from Milwaukee to New Or- 

 leans, and at the northern boundary, its widest 

 point, it would extend from Detroit, Mich., 

 to Sioux City, Iowa. British Columbia is 

 nearly 1,000 miles long from north to south, 

 and at its widest part is about 650 miles from 

 east to west. 



So much of the province is moun- 

 tainous and not fit for permanent 

 settlement that the average population is only 

 1.09 per square mile of surface. This gives a 

 total population of 392,480, according to the 

 census of 1911. Over sixty per cent of the 

 population is male, and a little more than half 

 is urban, that is, living in cities, towns and 

 villages. The large cities, in the order of their 

 size, are Vancouver, Victoria (the capital), New 

 Westminster, Nanaimo, Nelson, Prince Rupert 

 and Kamloops. Each of these is discussed in 

 a separate article in these volumes. 



The People. Of the total population, one- 

 third is of English birth or descent. The 

 Scotch are second, with about one-fifth, and 

 the Irish include one-tenth. There are about 

 20,000- native Indians; the number of Chinese 



RELIGIONS IN THE PROVINCE 



is about 20,000, but is not likely to increase 

 materially because of the heavy tax levied 

 on Chinese immigrants. Of the other for- 

 eigners or persons of foreign descent the most 

 numerous are the Scandinavians, Germans, 

 Italians, Japanese and French, in the order 

 named. The Anglican Church has the largest 



