Photo: Visit-World. com Author: www.visit-world.com · CC BY-SA 3.048 registered heritage sites stand within 50 km of Gibsons
The nearest town to Gibsons with a top designation is West Vancouver, 25 km away. The municipality’s date on Wikidata is 1886: a founding, an incorporation or an amalgamation, the record doesn’t say which.
Gibsons’s area holds 17 top-tier places within 50 km
The mix: 24 provincial or municipal listings, 16 National Historic Sites and 4 Recognized Federal Heritage Buildings. By age, Bastion leads, from 1855, at 41 km. They belong to 17 towns, chiefly Yaletown, Granville Entertainment District and Strathcona.
The 12 nearest, within 50 km
| Point Atkinson LighthouseNational Historic Site · 1912–1913 · 20 km away, in West Vancouver |
| Binning ResidenceNational Historic Site · 1941–1942 · 24 km away, in West Vancouver |
| Lions Gate BridgeNational Historic Site · 1937–1939 · 29 km away, in West Vancouver |
| Stanley ParkNational Historic Site · 1888–1989 · 29 km away, in West End |
| St. RochNational Historic Site · 1928–1929 · 30 km away, in Kitsilano |
| Merry Island LighthouseHeritage Lighthouse · 1966 · 30 km away, in Welcome Beach |
| Seaforth ArmouryRecognized Federal Heritage Building · 1935–1937 · 30 km away, in Fairview |
| Bessborough ArmouryRecognized Federal Heritage Building · 1932–1934 · 30 km away, in Kitsilano |
| Coastal ChurchHeritage designation · 1919 · 31 km away, in West End |
| Electra BuildingListed in a community heritage register · 1957 · 31 km away, in Granville Entertainment District |
| Former Vancouver Law CourtsNational Historic Site · 1907–1912 · 31 km away, in Granville Entertainment District |
| Hotel GeorgiaHeritage designation · 31 km away, in Granville Entertainment District |
Near Gibsons, within 50 km: built places from 1855 on
The area here stretches to 50 km around Gibsons: each historic place by the first construction date it records.
Bastion, in Nanaimo, goes back furthest, to 1855. 42 dated places within 50 km make up the record. One goes back before 1867.
Only 12% of Gibsons’s homes go back before 1961 (18% is typical)
Gibsons has an unusual share of homes built from 2001 to 2015: 20%, where most towns have 15%. From 2016 to 2021 Gibsons added 6.4% of its homes, more than the typical town’s 4.1%. The busiest building years in Gibsons were from 1981 to 2000, which account for 37% of today’s homes.
2021 Census, private dwellings by period of construction (Statistics Canada); the typical town is the middle Canadian town of 2,500 or more.
How Gibsons compares with 16 towns its size
Towns of 5,100 to 5,100 residents, by places on the registers.
Only Queen Alexandra, Annapolis County, Subdivision B and River-Osborne have more. Their median is 0. 13 of them have nothing on the registers.
Gibsons and its neighbours
| Town | People | Places | Highest | Oldest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gibsons | 5,090 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Electoral Area E, Sunshine Coast | 4,279 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Electoral Area F, Sunshine Coast | 2,691 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Roberts Creek | 3,779 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Bowen Island | 4,501 | 0 | 0 | — |
Gibsons in brief
Counted by age, only 12% of its homes come from before 1961, against 18% in the typical town. Most towns its size have more historic places: the typical one has 0.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Protection. Federal recognition isn’t a planning control: buildings the federal government owns follow its heritage policy, while others are protected only by a provincial or municipal designation.
- People and events. National historic persons carry no place in the open file. They appear on a town’s page when born there (same name, same birth and death years) or when a historic place inside it carries their name and its record names them with their dates; national historic events don’t appear.
- Provincial and municipal lists. Only Wikidata gives open access to listings on provincial and municipal registers outside Québec; without an article such a place is counted but not paged.
- The grade. History isn’t one of Canada’s graded pillars, so this page describes and compares without a letter.
- The federal register. The federal list is complete and open: Parks Canada’s directory for the designations, the Canadian Register of Historic Places for what each one is and why it matters.
- The tiers. National Historic Sites and the most protected buildings form the top tier; recognized federal buildings, stations and lighthouses the second; provincial and municipal listings the third.
Questions about Gibsons’s history
How many historic places does Gibsons have on the registers?
None in Gibsons itself. The closest is Point Atkinson Lighthouse in West Vancouver, 20 km away, a place of the highest rank.
When did Gibsons become a municipality?
Wikidata dates the municipality of Gibsons to 1886. That can be its founding, its incorporation or a later merger.
How old are the homes in Gibsons?
The 2021 Census dates 12% of its homes before 1961 (18% in the typical town).
Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada (Parks Canada).
Sources: Parks Canada, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations · Canadian Register of Historic Places (federal extract) · Wikidata (CC0) for map points, other names and articles · Statistics Canada, 2021 Census (homes by period of construction). Under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).