Capital City: Vancouver

Currency: Canadian dollar

British Columbia, Canada's westernmost province, is located on the Pacific coast of North America, and has a land and freshwater area of 95 million hectares. It is Canada's third largest province and comprises 9.5 percent of the country's total land area. The province is nearly four times the size of Great Britain, 2.5 times larger than Japan, and larger than any American state except Alaska. The province is bounded by the U.S. states of Washington, Idaho and Montana in the south, Alberta on the east, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon on the north, Alaska on the northwest and the Pacific Ocean to the west. From south to north, B.C. stretches 1,200 kilometres and from east to west as much as 1,050 kilometres. Its deeply indented, island-dotted coastline extends 7,000 kilometres. British Columbia is characterized by mountainous topography, but also has substantial areas of lowland and plateau country. The province has four basic regions: a northwesterly trending mountain system on the coast, a similar mountain system on the east, an extensive area of plateau and mountain country between the two, and a lowland segment of the continent's Great Plains in the northeastern part of the province. The province encompasses an abundance of waterways in the form of rivers, lakes and streams. Freshwater surfaces total 1.8 million hectares. Major river systems include the Fraser, Columbia, Skeena and Peace Rivers.