Vancouver: a World—Famous Port City
In 1986 when Vancouver, a Canadian port,had just celebrated its 100th birthday, the city's developments attracted world-wide attention. That a city is based on a harbor and develops flourishingly owing to the prosperity of the harbor is the very road to subsistence and development taken and experienced by many port cities. Thanks to 100 years of development and construction, Vancouver, which boasts a natural ice-free harbor, has become a world-famous port. It has regular passenger and cargo ships sailing to Asia, Oceania, Europe, and Latin America, the annual volume of freight handled amounting to 80 million tons. One third of the employed in the city are engaged in trade and transportation. The splendid achievements of Vancouver are the fruits of its people's wisdom and diligence, comprising the contributions of its various ethnic groups. Being a country with a vast territory and a sparse population, Canada is even larger than China, yet it has a small population of less than 30 million. For this reason, absorbing immigrants from foreign countries is a national policy followed long and consistently by the Canadian Government. It can be said that in Canada all people except the Indians are foreign immigrants. The only difference among them lies in the fact that some began to settle down there earlier than others. And Vancouver does particularly deserve being called one of the world's multi-national cities that can be counted on one's fingers. Nowadays, of the 1.8 million residents in Vancouver, as many as half were not born in the city, and one of every 4 residents is an Asian. There are 250,000 Chinese living in Vancouver and playing a decisive role in its economic change and development. Half of these Chinese inhabitants have settled in Vancouver only in the past five years. With so many Chinese living there, Vancouver has become the largest Chinese community outside Asia.