Little Italy is an area in the eastern part of

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Canada. It is in the

Grandview–Woodland Grandview–Woodland, also commonly known as Grandview–Woodlands, is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to the east of the downtown area, stretching south from the shores of Burrard Inlet and encompassing portions of the popu ...

neighbourhood, and is often synonymous with the

Commercial Drive Commercial Drive is a roadway in the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada that extends from Powell Street at its northern extremity, near the waterfront, south through the heart of the Grandview–Woodland neighbourhood to the Victori ...

area. Historically this area was an enclave of ethnic

Italians , flag = , flag_caption = The national flag of Italy , population = , regions = Italy 55,551,000 , region1 = Brazil , pop1 = 25–33 million , ref1 = , region2 ...

and Italian businesses. Today, after a period of steady decline, it is again a multi-cultural, vibrant commercial centre.

History

Prior to the 1930s, most

Italian immigrants The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Risorgimento, Unification of Italy, and ended in the ...

settled in what is today the Strathcona district; however, by the 1940s and 1950s most Italian immigrants to Vancouver settled in the northern Commercial Drive area, and were widely credited with revitalizing the neighbourhood. Most

Italian Canadian Italian Canadians ( it, italo-canadesi, french: italo-canadiens) comprise Canadians who have full or partial Italian heritage and Italians who migrated from Italy or reside in Canada. According to the 2021 Census of Canada, 1,546,390 Canadians ...

businesses and cultural facilities located along

and, since Italians were in the majority in the adjacent residential areas, Little Italy became a true ethnic Italian enclave. By the 1960s, many Italian businesses also sprang up in the Hastings and Nanaimo area, but the cultural core remained on Commercial Drive. Ethnic Italians were very influential in this area from the 1940s until the mid-1970s. By the mid-1970s, a combination of

cultural assimilation Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially. The different types of cultural assi ...

, non-Italian immigration, movement to the

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

s, and a

schism A schism ( , , or, less commonly, ) is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization, movement, or religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a split in what had previously been a single religious body, suc ...

within the Italian community led to the decline of Italian influence and concentration in Little Italy. Today, the area is again a vibrant cultural and business centre in eastern Vancouver, but after a succession of other immigrant and cultural groups, the Italian influence has greatly diminished. On April 6, 2016 the Vancouver City Councillors voted unanimously to declare the area as Little Italy. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on June 12 to recognize officially an eight-block stretch of Commercial Drive as Little Italy.

Italians in Metro Vancouver today

Today, there are still many Italian businesses and cultural organizations in Vancouver, and people of Italian ancestry living in the

Greater Vancouver Greater Vancouver, also known as Metro Vancouver, is the metropolitan area with its major urban centre being the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The term "Greater Vancouver" is roughly coterminous with the geographic area governed b ...

area number about 75,000. However, no particular single area is predominantly Italian in concentration.

Burnaby Heights Burnaby Heights, often referred to as The Heights, is a residential neighbourhood in North Burnaby between Boundary Road to the west, Gamma Avenue to the east and bounded by Hastings Street to the south. Its northern edge facing the North Shore ...

is not predominantly Italian, but Italian-Canadians have a distinct presence in the neighbourhood. East Hastings Street, between Boundary and Duthie, is another commercial hub for the Italian community. There are many Italian cafes, delis, and restaurants along the street, including stores which import goods from Italy. Two

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

churches offering masses in Italian, St. Helen's and Holy Cross, are located nearby. Older, first-generation Italians often congregate in nearby Confederation Park to play

Bocce (, or , ), sometimes anglicized as bocce ball, bocci or boccie, is a ball sport belonging to the boules family. Developed into its present form in Italy, it is closely related to British bowls and French , with a common ancestry from ancien ...

External links

Little Italy on Commercial Drive
* http://www.virtualvancouver.com/italytown.html {{Little Italy European-Canadian culture in British Columbia

Neighbourhoods in Vancouver Restaurant districts and streets in Canada