Diocese of British Columbia Diocese of British Columbia The Diocese of British Columbia is a diocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon of the Anglican Church of Canada. Despite the name, the diocese comprises only the 32,630 square kilometres of Vancouver Island and the adjacent Gulf Islands in the civil Province of British Columbia. Its see city is Victoria, and it presently maintains fifty-five parishes serving nearly 13,000 Anglicans. The diocese was established in 1859, and is the oldest in the ecclesiastical province, once extending over the entire civil province of British Columbia, hence the origin of its name. Its first
Geography of British Columbia Island is covered by a temperate rain forest. One-third of the province consists of barren alpine tundra, icefields, and glaciers. The landforms of British Columbia include two major continental landforms, the Interior Plains in the province's northeast, the British Columbia portion of which is part of the Alberta Plateau. The rest of the province is part of the Western Cordillera of North America, often referred to in Canada as the Pacific Cordillera or Canadian Cordillera. The Cordillera is subdivided into four main "systems" (which are distinct from the corresponding region's geologic provinces): B.C.'s Eastern Mountain System comprises the dominant Canadian