The downtown core of Vancouver is vibrant and exciting area comprised of three main neighbourhoods. The ever trendy Yaletown, the high-end residential area that is Coal Harbour and character filled West End.

 

Yaletown is an area of downtown Vancouver approximately bordered by False Creek, Robson, and Homer Streets. Formerly a heavy industrial area dominated by warehouses and rail yards, since the 1986 World's Fair, it has been transformed into one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in the city. The marinas, parks, high rise apartment blocks, and converted heritage buildings constitute a significant urban regeneration project. Today, Yaletown is a mecca for fashionable shops and restaurants, and is easily the most popular neighbourhood in Vancouver to see and be seen.

 

Coal Harbour is the name for a section of Burrard Inlet lying between Vancouver, Canada's downtown peninsula and the Brockton Peninsula of Stanley Park. It is also in recent years the name of the neighbourhood adjacent to its southern shoreline, which was redeveloped as an upscale high-rise condominium district in the 1990s. The harbour is bounded by the Financial District to the south and Stanley Park to the north. To the east is Deadman's Island, the site of the naval station/museum HMCS Discovery, where the harbour opens up to the Burrard Inlet. The discovery of coal in the harbour in 1862 inspired the name.

 

The West End neighbours Stanley Park and the areas of Yaletown, Coal Harbour and the downtown financial and central business districts. The definition of the "official neighbourhood" of the West End, according to the city, is the area west of Burrard Street, east of Denman Street, and south of West Georgia Street. Historically the term originated and remains used by Vancouverites to refer to everything from Burrard Street to Stanley Park, including the Stanley Park Neighbourhood west of Denman Street and the Coal Harbour Neighbourhood.