Nanaimo | British Columbia, Canada, Map, & Facts (2024)

Nanaimo, city, southwestern British Columbia, Canada, on Vancouver Island and the Georgia Strait. Founded as Colvilletown around a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post, it developed after 1849 when coalfields were discovered nearby by local Indigenous people. In 1860 the settlement was renamed Sne-ny-mo (whence Nanaimo) from an Indigenous word meaning “a big, strong tribe,” which was applied to a tribal confederation. An important distributing center, Nanaimo is connected with Vancouver and the mainland by ferries. Coal mining was the chief industry until the last mine closed in 1953. The economy now depends chiefly on lumbering, pulp processing, commercial fishing, agriculture, shipbuilding, and tourism. The federal government maintains a fisheries and oceanographic research station at the north edge of the city. Historical features are Petroglyph Park, with its ancient rock carvings, and the Bastion, part of a fort built by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1853 to protect the miners and settlers. The city is host to a unique sporting event—the annual mid-July Bathtub Race across the strait to Vancouver. Inc. city, 1874. Pop. (2006) 78,692; (2011) 83,810.