french: Baie Burrard , image = Burrard Inlet 201807.jpg , image_size = 250px , alt = , caption = Aerial view of Burrard Inlet , image_bathymetry = Burrard-Inlet-map-en.svg , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = Map of Burrard Inlet , location =

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 ...

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, for ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, group = , coordinates = , type =

Fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icel ...

, etymology = , part_of = Salish Sea , inflow = , rivers = , outflow = , oceans = , catchment = , basin_countries = , agency = , designation = , date-built = , engineer = , date-flooded = , length = , width = , area = , depth = , max-depth = , volume = , residence_time = , salinity = , shore = , elevation = , temperature_high = , temperature_low = , frozen = , islands = , islands_category = , sections = English Bay,

False Creek False Creek (french: Faux ruisseau) is a short narrow inlet in the heart of Vancouver, separating the Downtown and West End neighbourhoods from the rest of the city. It is one of the four main bodies of water bordering Vancouver, along with Eng ...

, Indian Arm , trenches = , benches = , cities = , pushpin_map = British Columbia , pushpin_label_position = , pushpin_map_alt = , pushpin_map_caption = Location in British Columbia , website = , reference = Burrard Inlet ( hur, səl̓ilw̓ət; french: Baie Burrard) is a relatively shallow-sided

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Icel ...

in northwestern

Lower Mainland The Lower Mainland is a geographic and cultural region of the mainland coast of British Columbia that generally comprises the regional districts of Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley. Home to approximately 3.05million people as of the 2021 Cana ...

, British Columbia, Canada. Formed during the last Ice Age, it separates the City of Vancouver and the rest of the lowland Burrard Peninsula to the south from the coastal slopes of the North Shore Mountains, which span

West Vancouver West Vancouver is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. A member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District, West Vancouver is to the northwest of the city of Vancouver on the northern side of English Ba ...

and the

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

and District of North Vancouver to the north. Burrard Inlet opens west into the

Strait of Georgia The Strait of Georgia (french: Détroit de Géorgie) or the Georgia Strait is an arm of the Salish Sea between Vancouver Island and the extreme southwestern mainland coast of British Columbia, Canada and the extreme northwestern mainland coast ...

between Point Atkinson and

Point Grey Point Grey ( Squamish: Elḵsn) is a headland marking the southern entrance to English Bay and Burrard Inlet. The headland is the site of Wreck Beach, Tower Beach, Point Grey Beach and most notably, since 1925, on its top is the Point Grey Camp ...

. Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula protrudes northwesterly into the inlet, separating it into the wide outer Burrard Inlet to the west and the elongated inner Burrard Inlet to the east. The southeastern portion of the outer inlet is an open

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

known as English Bay, which has a narrow eastern

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine ...

called

. The

strait A strait is an oceanic landform connecting two seas or two other large areas of water. The surface water generally flows at the same elevation on both sides and through the strait in either direction. Most commonly, it is a narrow ocean chan ...

between Prospect Point and the sandbanks just east of the Capilano River

mouth In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on ...

, which connects the inlet's outer and inner sections, is known as the First Narrows, traversed by the

Lions Gate Bridge The Lions Gate Bridge, opened in 1938 and officially known as the First Narrows Bridge, is a suspension bridge that crosses the first narrows of Burrard Inlet and connects the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, to the North Shore municipal ...

. The inner inlet then widens into Vancouver Harbour, which hosts the

Port of Vancouver The Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada and the fourth largest in North America by tonnes of cargo, facilitating trade between Canada and more than 170 world economies. The port is managed by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, whic ...

, Canada's largest port. At the eastern end of the harbour, Burrard Inlet narrows again into a strait between Burnaby Heights and the mouth of the Seymour River, known as the Second Narrows, which is traversed by the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge and the Second Narrows Rail Bridge. After the Second Narrows, it widens again and continues east until the

headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, J ...

near Dollarton, where it splits into two arms. The longer arm, known as Indian Arm, extends northerly between Mount Seymour and Eagle Mountain until it meets the deltas of Indian River mouth. The shorter arm, known as Port Moody Arm or Moody Inlet, courses further east for another past a strait (traversed only by

overhead powerline An overhead power line is a structure used in electric power transmission and distribution to transmit electrical energy across large distances. It consists of one or more uninsulated electrical cables (commonly multiples of three for three- ...

s) between Burnaby Mountain and the bluffs of

Belcarra Regional Park təmtəmíxʷtən/Belcarra Regional Park is a regional park located in Belcarra, Greater Vancouver, British Columbia. It is northeast of the meeting of Burrard Inlet with Indian Arm, beginning near Belcarra Bay and extending to Sasamat Lake. ...

. Port Moody Arm is almost completely encompassed by the City of Port Moody.

History

What is now known as Burrard Inlet has been home to the

Indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-waututh Bands, who have resided in this territory for thousands of years. In 1791, the first European explorers in the region, Juan Carrasco and José María Narváez, sailing under orders of Francisco de Eliza, entered the western part of the inlet in their ship, the '' Santa Saturnina''. They failed to find the

Fraser River The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver. The river's annual ...

, mistaking the lowland of the river's delta as a major inlet of the sea, which they named Canal de Floridablanca. This led to one of the prime objectives of the 1792 expedition of Dionisio Alcalá Galiano, which was to determine the exact nature of the Canal de Floridablanca. Galiano spent many days exploring the general area, realizing that there was a great river there and sighting Burrard Inlet itself on June 19, 1792. Just days later, the inlet was again named by Captain

George Vancouver Captain George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what are ...

, after his friend and former shipmate Captain (later Admiral) Sir Harry Burrard Neale.Bartroli, Thomas. ''Genesis of Vancouver City''. Vancouver: (Self-published). 1997 In 1888, the inlet was described in ''The British Columbia Pilot'' published by the

British Admiralty The Admiralty was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of i ...

as follows.

Geography

ISS067-E-3628 Burrard Inlet, British Columbia

The inlet runs almost directly east from the

to Port Moody. About two-thirds of the way east from the mouth of the inlet, the steep-sided Indian Arm branches off to the north between Belcarra and Deep Cove on into the

Pacific Ranges , photo = Mount Garibaldi (50997016501).jpg , photo_size = 280px , photo_caption = Mount Garibaldi massif as seen from Squamish , map = , map_image = South BC-NW USA-relief PacificRanges.png , ...

. Near the mouth of the inlet, a small section of the inlet along the curved stretch of the Burrard Peninsula is named English Bay. From English Bay, a small inlet named

branches off to the east and incises the peninsula.

Extent

The extent of Burrard Inlet is defined as a line between Point Atkinson and

on the west, the end of Port Moody Arm on the east, and the head of Indian Arm on the north. The inlet is about long from the

to Port Moody, or about from the Strait of Georgia to the head of Indian Arm.

Settlements

Settlements on the shores of Burrard Inlet include Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver,

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrar ...

, and Port Moody. Three bridges, the First Narrows Bridge (alias

) (built in the 1930s), the

Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, also called the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge and Second Narrows Bridge, is the second bridge constructed at the Second (east) Narrows of Burrard Inlet in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Orig ...

(1960) and the CNR railway bridge (1969) at the Second Narrows, and the

SeaBus The SeaBus is a passenger-only ferry service in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It crosses Burrard Inlet to connect the cities of Vancouver ( Waterfront station) and North Vancouver (Lonsdale Quay). Owned by TransLink and operated by ...

passenger ferry, cross the inlet. Aside from just east of the inlet's mouth (where it includes English Bay), it is widest (about ) between the First and Second Narrows, also the busiest part of Vancouver's port.

Port of Vancouver

Protected from the open ocean, the calm waters of Burrard Inlet form Vancouver's primary port area, an excellent one for large ocean-going ships. While some of the shoreline is residential and commercial, much is port-industrial, including railyards, terminals for container and bulk cargo ships, grain elevators, and (towards the eastern end) oil refineries. Freighters waiting to load or discharge cargoes in the inlet often anchor in English Bay, which lies south of the mouth of the inlet and is separated from it by Vancouver's downtown peninsula and

Stanley Park Stanley Park is a public park in British Columbia, Canada that makes up the northwestern half of Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park borders the neighbourhoods of West End and ...

. On the main inlet, a few park areas remain forested as they were centuries ago, but the steep slopes of Indian Arm are so impassable that most have seen no development, despite the proximity of such a major city. Only in 2003 was a rough wilderness hiking trail around the whole of Indian Arm completed, and it was the work of one man over many years.

Major crossings

The major crossings of Burrard Inlet, from west to east, are as follows: *

, or **

Second Narrows Bridge The Second Narrows Rail Bridge is a vertical-lift railway bridge that crosses the Burrard Inlet and connects Vancouver with the North Shore. The bridge's south end connects directly to the Thornton Tunnel, which connects it to the main Ca ...

References

External links

2002 Aerial Photos of Vancouver
including several views of Burrard Inlet and its shores {{portal bar, Pacific Northwest Fjords of British Columbia Landforms of Vancouver Tourism in Vancouver Coast of British Columbia Inlets of British Columbia