Geography of Vancouver:

Located on the Burrard Peninsula, Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet to the north and the Fraser River to the south. The Strait of Georgia, to the west, is shielded from the Pacific Ocean by Vancouver Island. The city has an area of 114 km2 (44 sq mi), including both flat and hilly ground, and is in the Pacific Time Zone (UTC?8) and the Pacific Maritime Ecozone. Until the city's naming in 1885, "Vancouver" referred to Vancouver Island, and it remains a common misconception that the city is located on the island. The island and the city are both named after Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver, though the city of Vancouver, Washington, on the north bank of the Columbia River opposite Portland, Oregon, is only indirectly named for Captain Vancouver; that city's name was adapted from Fort Vancouver, which had been the headquarters of the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company and the largest settlement in the Pacific Northwest until the Oregon Treaty of 1846.
Stanley Park near the Nine O'Clock Gun (L), with the Coal Harbour residential district in the background
Vancouver has one of the largest urban parks in North America, Stanley Park, which covers 404.9 hectares (1001 acres). The North Shore Mountains dominate the cityscape, and on a clear day scenic vistas include the snow-capped volcano Mount Baker in the state of Washington to the southeast, Vancouver Island across the Strait of Georgia to the west and southwest, and the Bowen Island to the northwest.

Ecology

The vegetation in the Vancouver area was originally temperate rain forest, consisting of conifers with scattered pockets of maple and alder, and large areas of swampland (even in upland areas, due to poor drainage). That they can grow in Vancouver is an indicator of the city's temperate climate in comparison to the rest of Canada. The conifers were a typical coastal British Columbia mix of Douglas-fir, Western red cedar and Western Hemlock. The area is thought to have the largest trees of these species on the British Columbia Coast. Only in Seattle's Elliott Bay did the size of trees rival those of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The largest trees in Vancouver's old-growth forest were in the Gastown area, where the first logging occurred, and on the southern slopes of False Creek and English Bay, especially around Jericho Beach. The forest in Stanley Park was logged between the 1860s and 1880s, and evidence of old-fashioned logging techniques such as springboard notches can still be seen there.
Many plants and trees growing throughout Vancouver and the Lower Mainland were imported from other parts of the continent and from points across the Pacific. Various species of palm trees grow in the city in isolated cases, as do large numbers of other exotic trees such as the monkey puzzle tree, the Japanese Maple, and various flowering exotics, such as magnolias, azaleas, and rhododendrons. Some rhododendrons have grown to immense sizes,[citation needed] as have other species imported from harsher climates in Eastern Canada or Europe. The native Douglas Maple can also attain a tremendous size. Many of the city's streets are lined with flowering varieties of Japanese cherry trees donated from the 1930s onward by the government of Japan. These flower for several weeks in early spring each year. Other streets are lined with flowering chestnut, horse chestnut and other decorative shade trees