Mountains, rainforest, and Hollywood North
Vancouver is a temperate rainforest city wedged between the Coast Mountains and the Pacific, and it gets considerably more rain than its reputation admits. It sits on Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh land, and grew from a 19th-century sawmill town — burned down entirely in 1886, its first year as a city — into one of the most livable and most expensive places in North America. The glass skyline doubles as a film backdrop for a large share of Hollywood's output, earning the nickname Hollywood North; it stands in for Seattle, New York, and small-town America so often that locals spot the location trucks by habit. Stanley Park is larger than Central Park and mostly left as forest. Chinatown, Punjabi Market, and Commercial Drive each carry a distinct culture and kitchen.
