page_title: Victoria, British Columbia
section_title: Outside the city
hierarchical_section_title: Victoria, British Columbia / Culture / Attractions / Outside the city
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Lieu historique national du Canada des Jardins-Butchart
context_page_description: Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 85,792, and the Greater Victoria Area has a population of 367,770. Victoria is the 7th most densely populated city in Canada with 4,405.8 people per square kilometre.
  Victoria is the southernmost major city in Western Canada, and is about 100 km from British Columbia's largest city of Vancouver on the mainland. The city is about 100 km from Seattle by airplane, ferry, or the Victoria Clipper passenger-only ferry which operates daily, year round between Seattle and Victoria, and 40 km from Port Angeles, Washington, by ferry Coho across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
  Named for Queen Victoria, the city is one of the oldest in the Pacific Northwest, with British settlement beginning in 1843. The city has retained a large number of its historic buildings, in particular its two most famous landmarks, Parliament Buildings and the Empress hotel. The city's Chinatown is the second oldest in North America after San Francisco's.
context_section_description: CFB Esquimalt navy base, in the adjacent municipality of Esquimalt, has a base museum dedicated to naval and military history, in the Naden part of the base. 
  North of the city on the Saanich Peninsula are the marine biology Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre, Butchart Gardens, one of the biggest tourist and local resident attractions on Vancouver Island, as well as the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, part of the National Research Council of Canada, Victoria Butterfly Gardens and Centre of the Universe planetarium.
  Notable museums just outside of Victoria include the Maritime Museum of British Columbia, and the British Columbia Aviation Museum on the north edge of the Victoria International Airport. There are also numerous National Historic Sites in close proximity to Victoria, such as the Fisgard Lighthouse, Craigflower Manor and Schoolhouse, Hatley Castle and Hatley Park and Fort Rodd Hill, which is a coastal artillery fort built in the late 1890s west of the city in Colwood. Also west of the city is Western Speedway, a 640-metre (⁴⁄₁₀ mi) oval vehicular race track and the largest in Western Canada.
caption: Just north of the city limits is Butchart Gardens, a botanical garden and National Historic Site.
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