| British
Columbia, Canada's westernmost province, is located on the Pacific
coast, 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 (BC is 1.35 times bigger than Texas!).
There are only thirty nations in the world larger than British Columbia.
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 and Alaska on the northwest. 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
is blessed with an abundance of waterways in the form of rivers,
lakes, streams and swamps. Freshwater surfaces total 1.8 million
hectares. Major river systems include the Fraser, Columbia, Skeena
and Peace Rivers.
B.C. has nearly 1,000 provincial parks and protected areas, attracting about 24 million visits every year. Since 2001, the provincial government has established 57 new parks, 143 conservancies, one ecological reserve and eight protected areas, and expanded more than 50 parks and six ecological reserves, protecting more than 1.9 million hectares (an area almost three times the size of Prince Edward Island.) This includes 200,000 hectares of habitat for the world-famous Spirit Bear, B.C.'s official mammal. Today, 14.26 per cent (or more than 13.5 million hectares) of British Columbia is protected – more than any other province in Canada.
British Columbia 25,725-kilometre coastline supports a large shipping
industry through ice-free, deepwater ports.
Approximately 21% (20.3 million hectares) of British Columbia is
rock or consists of alpine barren icefields and glaciers.
Approximately 62% of British Columbia is forest land, with 48 million
hectares, or 51% productive forest.
Approximately 5% (4.04 million hectares) of British Columbia is
arable and grazing land consisting of 2.6 million hectares cultivated
land; 10 million hectares open range; and 0.4 million hectares Alpine
and sub-Alpine range.
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