The Fraser Valley Regional District (FVRD) is a regional district in British Columbia, Canada. Its headquarters are in the city of Chilliwack. The FVRD covers an area of 13,361.74 km² (5,159 sq mi). It was created in 1995 by an amalgamation of the Fraser-Cheam Regional District and Central Fraser Valley Regional District and the portion of the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District from and including the District of Mission eastwards.
The FVRD is the third most populous Regional District in British Columbia, incorporating roughly the eastern half of the Lower Mainland of southwestern BC, and is bordered by Whatcom County, Washington to the south, Metro Vancouver to the west, the Okanagan-Similkameen Regional District to the east, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District to the northwest, and the Thompson-Nicola Regional District to the northeast.
It also includes unincorporated areas north of the City of Pitt Meadows, which were part of the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District but which were not transferred to the Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD) when it expanded to include Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge.
Demographics
As a census division in the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Fraser Valley Regional District had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
Population by census subdivision
Ethnicity
Note: Totals greater than 100% due to multiple origin responses.
Language
According to the 2011 Census, 76.47% of Fraser Valley's population have English as mother tongue; Punjabi is the mother tongue of 10.02% of the population, followed by German (3.49%), Dutch (1.39%), French (1.07%), Korean (0.69%), Spanish (0.66%), Tagalog (0.35%), Chinese, n.o.s. (0.33%), and Vietnamese (0.30%).
Services
While the member municipalities provide for their own municipal services, the FVRD acts as the local government for the electoral areas. As a local government or regional district, it can provide services such as water piping, storm sewers, sanitary sewers, street lighting, waste management, fire protection, mosquito control, E911 service, emergency preparedness/recovery, cablevision, air quality monitoring, library funding, growth management, park maintenance, building inspections and bylaw enforcement, planning, and development approvals. Each area does not necessarily receive all these services so each electoral area pays property taxes, through the provincial government, in accordance with the particular services they receive. The FVRD has opted to implement a regional growth strategy, as allowed by Section 25 of the BC Local Government Act.
Political structure
The regional district is a federation of municipalities and electoral areas. Each municipality appoints councillors to the board of directors for the regional district in proportion to their relative population sizes and the electoral areas directly elect one director each.
Economy
Economically, the area has grown around resource extraction, specifically farming, logging and gravel mining. Much of the Fraser Valley's land base is within the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). The balance, not privately owned is in Crown Lands. Retirement and recreational services (like campgrounds, RV parks, boating, skiing etc.) have become increasingly important. However, most commercial and industrial activities are kept within the municipal boundaries and leaving the electoral areas for farming and rural residential uses.
Electoral area, geography, and climate
The areas in a regional district that are not incorporated are called ‘electoral areas’.
Electoral area "A" Boston Bar and North Bend, with populations nearing 200 people each, are the two main small towns in this area. Other residents of this area live in small subdivisions (i.e. Canyon Alpine and Falls Creek) or Indian reserves which line the Fraser Canyon.
Electoral area "B" Communities in this area are connected by three highways (Highway #1, #3, #5) which radiate out of the District of Hope. The communities of Dogwood Valley, Emory Creek, and Choate are just north of Hope and have a combined population of about 133 people. Sunshine Valley is a community on BC Highway 3 southeast of Hope with 164 people and was originally a Japanese internment camp named Tashme. Other communities in this area include Laidlaw, west of Hope, and Spuzzum, north of Yale.