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British Columbia, the westernmost province of Canada, is bounded on the E by Alberta, on the S by Montana, Idaho, and Washington, on the W by the Pacific Ocean, on the NW by Alaska, and on the N by the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories. Along its deeply indented Pacific coast lie many islands, notably Vancouver Island (c.280 mi/450 km long) and the sparsely inhabited Queen Charlotte Islands. The province is almost wholly mountainous, with the Rocky Mts. in the southeast, the Coast Mts. along the Pacific, and the Stikine Mts. in the northwest.

Chief of the many rivers is the Fraser, which, with its tributaries, drains much of central and S British Columbia as it flows to the Pacific. Other rivers in that region include the upper Columbia and the Kootenay. In the north are the Peace, the Stikine, the Nass, and the Skeena. Hydroelectric resources in British Columbia are highly developed; large plants along the rivers operate pulp and paper mills. The station at Kemano on the Nechako River serves one of the biggest aluminum plants in the world, at Kitimat. Long, narrow lakes are found throughout the interior, supplying vast backwaters for dams; Williston Lake, on the Peace River, is the largest of these.

British Columbia attracts millions of visitors annually, and the land is a hunting and fishing paradise. There are four national parks—Glacier, Mt. Revelstoke, Yoho, and Kootenay—and hundreds of provincial parks and camping grounds. The climate along the west coast, tempered by the warm Japan Current, has made that area, especially Vancouver and Victoria , very attractive to tourists.

British Columbia's capital is Victoria, located at the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island. BC's most populous city is Vancouver, located in southwest corner of the BC mainland called the Lower Mainland. Other major cities include Surrey, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Delta, and New Westminster in the Lower Mainland; Abbotsford and Langley in the Fraser Valley; Nanaimo on Vancouver Island; and Kelowna and Kamloops in the Interior. Prince George is the largest city in the northern part of the province, while a town northwest of it, Vanderhoof, is at the geographic centre of the province.

The Coast Mountains, Canadian Rockies and the Inside Passage's many inlets provide some of British Columbia's renowned and spectacular scenery, which forms the backdrop and context for a growing outdoor adventure and ecotourism industry. 75% of the province is mountainous (more than 1,000 meters or 3,280 feet above sea level), 60% is forested, and only about 5% is arable. The province is renowned for its picturesque beauty. The Okanagan area is one of only three wine-growing regions in Canada and also produces excellent ciders, but exports little of either beverage. The small rural towns of Penticton, Oliver, and Osoyoos have some of the warmest and longest summer climates in Canada, although their temperature ranges are exceeded by the even-warmer Fraser Canyon towns of Lillooet and Lytton where temperatures on summer afternoons often surpass 40°C (104°F).

Much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast as far north as the Alaska Panhandle and south from the Olympic Peninsula to northern California, is covered by temperate rain forest. This overall region is one of a mere handful worldwide of such temperate rainforest ecosystems in the world (notable others being on the of Washington and in Chile, New Zealand, Tasmania) and the Russian Far East. The province's mainland away from coastal regions are not as moderated by the Pacific Ocean, and range from desert and semi-arid plateau, range and canyon districts of the Interior Plateau. A few southern Interior valleys features snowy, cold winters, while due to altitude and latitude those from the Cariboo, the northern part of the Central Interior, northwards are as cold as anywhere else in wintertime Canada. The northern two-thirds of the province is largely unpopulated and undeveloped, and is mostly mountainous except east of the Rockies, where the Peace River District contains BC's portion of the Canadian Prairies, and in the plateaus and broad valley basins near the boundary with the Yukon.
 
 
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