Vancouver's Chinatown has latterly been associated with crime and homelessness, but it has a history as one of the largest and most vibrant Chinatowns in North America.
Founded around the same time as the City of Vancouver itself in the late 1880s, the district on the eastern edge of the downtown core first attracted young Chinese men who were brought out to construct the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Upon the project's completion in 1885, scores stayed to create the Chinatown district.
The same year, the notorious head tax of C$50 (HK$381) to deter Chinese migration was introduced, but by the 1890s Chinatown was booming.
A Chinese theatre and opera house were opened, as well as a branch of the Chinese Benevolent Association. According to an overview provided by the City of Vancouver, Chinatown's population soared from about 90 in 1887 to 2,900 by 1900.
In 1903, rising tensions helped spur Canada to increase the head tax to a then-astronomical C$500, and four years later a white mob rampaged through Chinatown after a meeting of the Asiatic Exclusion League.