Sunset is one of the most ethnically diverse neighbourhood in

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 cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. It is located in the south-east quadrant of the city. Surrounding the multicultural Fraser Street district, Sunset is bordered by both the

Marpole Marpole, originally a Musqueam village named , is a mostly residential neighbourhood of 23,832 in 2011, located on the southern edge of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, immediately northeast of Vancouver International Airport, and is approx ...

and Oakridge neighbourhoods to the west, and the Victoria-Fraserview neighbourhood to the east.

History

Development of the Sunset neighbourhood first took place in the 1860s. At the time, the area was part of the District of South Vancouver and consisted mostly of farmland alongside a cluster of homes. Extensive logging took place along the south slope of Vancouver during the late 19th into early 20th century, prompting communities such as Sunset to rapidly industrialize. In 1929, the District of South Vancouver amalgamated with the City of Vancouver, thus incorporating Sunset as a part of the city. The neighbourhood remained quite rural until the 1940s, when a large wave immigrants from central and eastern Europe moved into the area. Many new German immigrants established churches, most of which remain to this day. Beginning in the 1950s, into the 1960s and 1970s, another large wave of immigrants moved into Sunset. Primarily

Sikhs Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Sikh'' ...

from the

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

region of

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

, the new immigrants founded the Punjabi Market (

Little India Little India (also known as Indian Street, India Bazaar, or India Town) is an Indian people, Indian or South Asian sociocultural environment outside India or the Indian subcontinent. It especially refers to an area with a significant concentra ...

) on Main Street and presided over the last final large scale development in the neighbourhood with the construction of hundreds of Vancouver Specials. As most development in the area ceased in the 1980s, these homes continue to be a mainstay across southeast Vancouver. Today, the neighbourhood is among the most ethnically diverse across

Metro Vancouver The Metro Vancouver Regional District (MVRD), or simply Metro Vancouver, is a Canadian political subdivision and Corporation, corporate entity representing the metropolitan area of Greater Vancouver, designated by provincial legislation as o ...

and continues the serve as one of several centres of the South Asian community in Vancouver. The Sunset neighborhood was dominated by bungalow homes constructed in the 1960s and 1970s; however, in the last 10 years, many of these smaller houses have been torn down and have been replaced by larger multi-level residences.

Geography

Sunset lies between E 41st Avenue, Ontario St, Knight St and the

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

. Commercial districts in Sunset are situated on Fraser Street between 41st and 51st avenues; named as Vancouver's most multicultural neighbourhood, the Fraser district features many

South Asian South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

, Chinese, Filipino and European businesses. Another commercial district in Sunset is the Punjabi Market (also known as

) which is situated on Main Street and 49th Avenue. Like most of south-east Vancouver, the area used to be predominantly working class but rising house prices elsewhere have made the area increasingly popular with young professionals and families who can no longer afford houses in areas such as the west side.

Demographics

The neighbourhood contains the largest South Asian (33.6%) and Punjabi speaking (23%) population in the city.

Notes

References

{{coord , 49.224, N, 123.089, W, display=title Neighbourhoods in Vancouver