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Chinatown

First Vancouver City Council Meeting after the fire - photograph by H. T. Devine
First Vancouver City Council Meeting after the fire - photograph by H. T. Devine (VPL # 508)

Related Guides

Chinatown was originally the only place in Vancouver that white settlers allowed people of Asian descent to reside. It is the largest historical Chinatown in Canada and is located in the Downtown Eastside area of the city.

Useful Websites

Group that organizes to protect Chinatown through meetings, discussions and action.

Website for Chinese History art exhibition located throughout Chinatown.

News and features about Vancouver's Chinatown.

A community strategy for social and economic development by Chinatown Action Group and Chinatown Concern Group.

This study includes information on five heritage buildings that are owned by societies/associations in Chinatown.

Collection of stories that describe Vancouver's Chinatown as experienced by longtime Chinatown residents. Recorded audio interviews are paired with images to tell a visual story in the form of short videos, some in English and some in Cantonese with subtitles.

Artist-facilitated community digital storytelling workshops focused on the space and the subaltern histories of Vancouver’s Chinatown.

A self-guided walking tour of Chinatown in Vancouver.

Guide from Vancouver Chinatown Business Improvement Area Society (VCBIA).

A list of fiction titles set in Vancouver's Chinatown.

Digital Library Resources
Culture and History Subject Icon

British Columbia city directories from 1860 to 1955. Directories include detailed historical information about British Columbian communities.

Access:
Everywhere for everyone
Newspapers and Magazines Subject Icon

Digitized newspaper archives covering The Province (1898 - present), The Vancouver Sun (1912 - present) and The Times Colonist (1884 - present).

Issues from most recent 3 months not available in this collection. See Canadian Newsstream for current issues.

Access:
Everywhere for Vancouver residents
Newspapers and Magazines Subject Icon

Search and view community newspapers from around BC published between 1865 and 1994. This collection makes many of BC's earliest newspapers freely available in digital format

Access:
Everywhere for everyone
Culture and History Subject Icon

Finding tool for historical information about BC in books, magazines and newspapers in the Vancouver Public Library collection.

Access:
Everywhere for everyone
Culture and History Subject Icon

A selection of historical images of Vancouver and British Columbia from the 1880s to the 1980s.

Access:
Everywhere for everyone
Culture and History Subject Icon

The Vancouver Public Library created This Vancouver to share the stories of Vancouverites and the history of Vancouver communities through images, audio clips, and videos. 

Access:
Everywhere for everyone

Recommended Titles

Losses Sustained by the Chinese Population of Vancouver, 1907

William Lyon Mackenzie King and Canada (Department of Labour)

323.1711 C21re

1908

Report by the Deputy Minister of Labour of the Canadian government, and future prime minister, on the anti-Asian riots in Vancouver in 1907.

Cover Image for Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood

Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood

Wayson Choy

c823 C5521WC5p

1999

Award-winning Vancouver author investigates his past and tells the story of his Chinatown childhood in the 1940s.

Cover Image for Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver

Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver

Paul Yee

971.1004 Y42s1

2006

Text and 200 photographs form a chronological portrait of the community from its earliest beginnings to the present.

Cover Image for Trouble on Main Street: Mackenzie King, Reason, Race, and the 1907 Vancouver Riots

Trouble on Main Street: Mackenzie King, Reason, Race, and the 1907 Vancouver Riots

Julie F. Gilmour

971.133 G48t

2014

Examines the impact of Vancouver's 1907 anti-Asian violence on Canadian policy and in particular on the life and work of future prime minister W. L. Mackenzie King.

Cover Image for Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980

Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980

Kay Anderson

971.1004 A54v

1991

Examines the history and development of Chinatown in Vancouver, paying particular attention to white racism and Chinese-Canadian response.

Vancouver Chinatown: Specially Prepared for the Vancouver Golden Jubilee, 1886-1936

Quene Yip

971.133 V22Y5v

1936

Guide to Vancouver's Chinatown written in the 1930s by one of its residents.

Contact Us

Northwest History Index

This card index in Special Collection provides access to the Northwest History Collection, a heritage collection covering the early history and exploration of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.

The collection includes:

  • magazine and newspaper articles
  • pamphlets
  • books
  • chapters in books
  • many other resources

As of August 1998, no new material has been added to the Northwest History Index. It is continued by the British Columbia Index.