The City of Vancouver has around six hundred thousand residents, approximately thirty percent of the total metropolitan population who live on 50 square miles, which is less than two per cent of the total Greater Vancouver land base of 2,537 square miles. However the total amount of land suitable for urban development is much less, only about 556 square miles because of protected watersheds, local and regional, provincial parks, agricultural land, forest and the land that is too steep to develop.
