Surrey ( ) is a city in British Columbia, Canada. It is located south of the Fraser River on the Canada–United States border. It is a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver regional district and metropolitan area.
Mainly a suburban city, Surrey is the province's second-largest by population after Vancouver and the third-largest by area after Abbotsford and Prince George. Seven neighbourhoods in Surrey are designated town centres: Cloverdale, Fleetwood, Guildford, Newton, South Surrey, and City Centre encompassed by Whalley.
History
Surrey was incorporated in 1879 and sits upon the lands of a number of Indigenous nations, namely the Katzie and the Kwantlen (who speak Halkomelem) and the Semiahmoo, who speak the North Straits Salish language, similar to the Saanich people. When Englishman H.J. Brewer looked across the Fraser River from New Westminster and saw it was reminiscent of his native County of Surrey in England, the settlement of Surrey was placed on the map.
The area then comprised forests of Douglas fir, fir, red cedar, hemlock, blackberry bushes, and cranberry bogs. A portion of present-day Whalley (named after Harry Whalley, who owned and operated a gas bar at the bend in King George Blvd, (formerly King George Highway) at 108 Avenue, "Whalley's Corner") was used as a burial ground by the Kwantlen (or Qw'ontl'en) Nation.
Settlers arrived first in Cloverdale and parts of South Surrey, mostly to farm, fish, harvest oysters, or set up small stores. Once the Pattullo Bridge was erected in 1937, the way was open for Surrey to expand. In the post-war 1950s, North Surrey's neighbourhoods filled with single-family homes. Surrey, not yet a city, became a bedroom community, absorbing commuters who worked in Burnaby or Vancouver.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the city witnessed unprecedented growth, as people from different parts of Canada and the world, particularly Asia, began to make the municipality their home. In 2013, it was projected to surpass the city of Vancouver as the most populous city in BC within the following 10 to 12 years.
Geography
The city is characterized by low population density urban sprawl, typical of North American cities, which includes areas of residential housing, light industry and commercial centres and is prone to strip development and malls.
Approximately or 27 percent of the land area is designated as part of the Agricultural Land Reserve and can only be used for farming. The city is mostly hills and flatland, with most of the flatland in Tynehead, Hazelmere, the south of Cloverdale, and Colebrook.
Climate Surrey has an oceanic climate (Cfb) typical of the inter-coastal Pacific Northwest: rainy, wet winters, often with heavy rainfall lasting into early spring. Winters are chilly but not frigid. Summers are mild and sunny, and autumns are cool and cloudy.
Demographics
In the 2021 Canadian census, Surrey had a population of 568,322 living in 185,671 of its 195,098 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 517,887. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
Surrey is the 11th largest city in Canada, and is also the fifth-largest city in Western Canada, after Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Surrey forms an integral part of Metro Vancouver as it is the largest city in the region by land area, while serving as the secondary economic core of the metropolitan area. When combined with the City of Vancouver, both cities account for nearly 50 percent of the region's population. In recent years, a rapidly expanding urban core in Downtown Surrey, located in Whalley has transformed the area into the secondary downtown core in Metro Vancouver.
Ethnicity Neighbourhoods include City Centre, Whalley, Newton, Guildford, Fleetwood, Cloverdale and South Surrey. Each neighbourhood is unique and includes ethnically diverse populations. In 2019, areas with a large proportion of Europeans included South Surrey (72 percent) and Cloverdale (69 percent). South Asians were the majority in Newton (58 percent) and Whalley (51 percent).
Immigration to Surrey drastically increased beginning in the 1980s. This created a more ethnically and linguistically diverse city. 52 percent do not speak English as their first language. Approximately 38 percent of the city's inhabitants are of South Asian heritage. Beginning in the 1990s, an influx of South Asians began moving to the city from the Punjabi Market neighbourhood of South Vancouver due to rising housing costs and rapidly increasing rent costs for businesses. The outflow of these residents combined with increased immigration from the Indian Subcontinent and established in Surrey one of the largest concentrations of South Asian residents in North America.
Other significant groups in the city in 2021 included East Asians (10.9 percent) and Southeast Asians (9.7 percent). Forming nearly 2.3 percent of the total population in 2021, the Black community of Surrey was small, though the city was home to the largest Black population in British Columbia. Roughly 21 percent of the entire Black population of the province resided in Surrey. Similar to most cities across English-speaking Canada, a large majority (64 percent) of Surrey residents of European heritage can trace their roots to the British Isles.
+ Panethnic groups in Surrey (2001−2021)Panethnic group20212016201120062001 South Asian 212,680 168,040 142,445 107,810 75,680 European 173,155 198,835 208,625 203,815 211,870 East Asian 61,360 52,025 39,270 29,965 23,600 Southeast Asian 54,635 44,875 39,560 25,795 16,440 African 12,870 9,455 6,150 5,015 3,810 Middle Eastern 12,620 9,485 5,615 3,595 2,300 Indigenous 12,175 13,460 10,955 7,630 6,895 Latin American 8,830 7,065 5,340 3,785 3,315 Other/multiracial 14,240 8,315 5,385 5,050 1,880 Total responses 562,565 511,540 463,340 392,450 345,780 Total population 568,322 517,887 468,251 394,976 347,825
Religion
Proportionally, Surrey has the largest Sikh population percentage (27.4 percent) out of all subdivisions in Canada.
In 2021, the top five most reported religious affiliations in Surrey were Christianity (170,115 or 30.2 percent), Irreligion (161,860 or 28.6 percent), Sikhism (154,415 or 27.4 percent), Islam (31,095 or 5.5 percent), and Hinduism (30,455 or 5.4 percent).
Language + Languages with over 2,500 speakers Mother tongue Population Percentage English 243,510 43.2% Punjabi 128,305 22.7% Mandarin 28,080 5.0% Tagalog 18,640 3.3% Hindi 14,540 2.6% Korean 8,690 1.5% Cantonese 8,165 1.4% Spanish 7,565 1.3% Vietnamese 6,860 1.2% Arabic 6,135 1.1%Urdu5,8201.0%Persian (including Dari)3,1150.6%French2,9100.5%German2,8600.5%
Economic indicators
In 2010, Surrey had the highest median family income of , while the BC provincial median was $71,660, and the national median was $74,540. The average family income was $85,765. South Surrey area had the highest average household income of all six town centres in Surrey, with an average of $86,824 as of 2010. Median household income was also high at $62,960. South Surrey's neighbourhood of Rosemary Heights is the richest in Surrey and throughout the Metro Vancouver area, with a median income more than twice the regional average.
In 2010, the median household income of Surrey was $67,702 (versus the national median of $76,437), where 29.4 percent of households in Surrey earned a household total income of $100,000 or more, which is above the national average of 25.9 percent.
Economy
Surrey is one of the largest industrial centres within British Columbia, with a burgeoning high technology, clean energy, advanced manufacturing, health, education, agriculture, and arts sector.
Increase in filming activity in Surrey resulted in 189 productions, including 15 at the city hall plaza, in 2017.
In 2018, Surrey opened a $68 million biofuel facility, the first in North America.
There were six employers in Surrey in 2017 each with more than 1,000 staff across BC: Fraser Health with 25,000; School District 36 with 10,560; City of Surrey with 3,400; Coast Capital Savings with 1,738; Starline Windows Group with 1,400; Kwantlen Polytechnic University with 1,332.
Agriculture
Farming has strongly been attached to the economic well-being of Surrey, as the city of Surrey itself fostered and cemented a robust culture of farming. Approximately a third of Surrey's land is preserved and designated as farmland that is utilized for the local production of food to cater the city's growing population and increasing employment opportunities via the creation of local jobs. In 2015, agriculture employed 3,300 people, or 1.6 percent of Surrey's overall labour force.
Manufacturing Manufacturing is also a highly diversified sector. Lumber is cut for BC logging firms. Wind turbines are produced for the clean energy sector.
Health care
The health sector makes a significant contribution to Surrey's economy. Surrey is home to almost 900 health-related businesses where major focuses in several life science sub-sectors that include infectious diseases, marine bio-science, neuroscience, oncology and regenerative medicine. Surrey Memorial Hospital is the second largest employer in the City of Surrey with an annual operating budget of $149.2million. Fraser Health, overseeing healthcare in the region, employs more than 4,100 people and an additional 350 active physicians at SMH. Due to population growth in the region, a new hospital in Surrey is planned to be built in Cloverdale; in 2021, it was projected to be completed in 2026.
Government and politics
Surrey is governed by the elected Surrey City Council comprising a mayor and eight councillors. As of the October 15, 2022, election, the mayor is Brenda Locke. City councillors are Linda Annis, Harry Bains, Mike Bose, Doug Elford, Gordon Hepner, Pardeep Kooner, Mandeep Nagra, and Rob Stutt.
In 2004, when Gurmant Grewal's wife Nina was elected to parliament, they became the first married couple to serve Canadian parliament concurrently. Following the 2015 federal election, the Liberal Party of Canada won three of Surrey's four seats in the House of Commons of Canada. Conservative MP Dianne Watts resigned her South Surrey—White Rock seat in 2017 to compete for the leadership of the BC Liberal Party. In the subsequent 2017 by-election, the Liberal candidate Gordie Hogg defeated former Conservative MP and federal cabinet minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay.
+Surrey federal election results Year Liberal Conservative New Democratic Green 2021 44%91,045 30% 60,927 21% 42,791 1% 1,729 2019 39% 83,925 32% 69,931 22% 46,759 5% 11,853
+Surrey provincial election results Year New Democratic BC Liberal Green 2020 54% 94,084 37% 63,251 7% 11,781 2017 47% 85,738 41% 75,056 10% 19,064
Culture
Attractions
The Museum of Surrey is affiliated with CMA, CHIN, and Virtual Museum of Canada. It reopened as the Museum of Surrey in September 2018, after a renovation which added to the previous building.
Surrey Art Gallery is the second largest public art museum in the Metro Vancouver region. It opened in September 1975.
The historic Surrey Municipal Hall complex includes the Cenotaph in Heritage Square, the Surrey Museum, and Cloverdale Library. The Surrey City Centre Public Library located at Whalley / City Centre is the second largest library in terms of size in Metro Vancouver.
"REMEMBRANCE" by André Gauthier in Heritage Square, is an oversized bronze statue depicting a World War I kneeling soldier, helmet in hand, in remembrance of his fallen comrades.
Events
Attracting 15,000 people every February since 2004, WinterFest is a day of live music, sporting activities, food, and fireworks, held at the Central City Plaza.