Facilities and recreational opportunities
- 10,700 vehicle-accessible campsites and approximately 2000 walk-in or backcountry campsites
- 39 group campgrounds and picnic areas that can be reserved
- Approximately one third of parks offer some form of developed facilities (approximately 324)
- 60 picnic shelters
- 126 boat launch areas
- About 6000km of hiking trails
- 1,138km of roads
- Approximately 27,000 parking spaces
- More than 230 parks have facilities for those with disabilities
Park and protected area information
- The 947,026-hectare Tatshenshini-Alsek Park is a World Heritage Site (together with adjacent parks in Alaska and the Yukon, it forms the world's largest international World Heritage Site)
- Khutzeymateen Park is Canada's only grizzly bear sanctuary and is home to about 50 grizzlies, the highest known concentration along the British Columbia coast
- Liard River Hot Springs are ranked in the top five of all North American hot springs
- The largest intact coastal temperate rainforest in the world is protected in Kitlope Heritage Conservancy
- Anne Vallee (Triangle Island) Ecological Reserve protects the largest seabird colony in British Columbia and the largest Stellar's sea lion rookery in Canada and the second largest in the world
- 70% of British Columbia's five million nesting seabirds are protected in 13 of B.C.'s ecological reserves
- Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Park, one of Canada's largest and most significant parks, supports populations of wildlife and includes one of British Columbia's most important habitats for woodland caribou
- Tweedsmuir Park at 989,616 hectares, is British Columbia's largest provincial park. The smallest is Memory Island, at less than one hectare
- Stone Mountain Park is the highest elevation pass of the Alaska Highway
- Strathcona Park (created in 1911, is B.C.'s first provincial park) contains the 440 metre Della Falls, which is Canada's highest and one of the ten highest falls in the world
- The world's most productive sockeye salmon run can be viewed at Tsútswecw Park
Visitor use and attendance
Visitor use
- Almost 90% of British Columbians have used a provincial park at some time
- About six in ten residents of British Columbia use a provincial park each year
Attendance
BC Parks tracks attendance through campground registrations, trail and traffic counters, and visual counts. In order to have standard, comparable information, all 'visits' are stated in person days (so one person staying for two days counts as two 'visits'). Average party sizes are applied to daily counts of cars, boats, camping parties, etc., to obtain the number of actual visits. The data below has undergone a quality assurance assessment to ensure that it reflects the total number of recorded visits each year, as accurately as possible. Visitation is provided for the fiscal year with, for example, 2016-17 representing data for April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017.
| Recorded park visits | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Camping | 2,577,500 | 2,743,700 | 2,933,200 | 2,922,900 | 3,069,300 |
| Day use | 18,526,300 | 20,946,000 | 21,890,900 | 20,789,300 | 23,015,600 |
| Boating | 205,200 | 186,900 | 181,900 | 151,300 | 168,600 |
| Total visits | 21,325,000 | 23,876,600 | 25,006,000 | 25,863,500 | 26,253,500 |
Park operators
- 22 park operators operate 29 bundles (which include 201 parks)
- 50 additional parks are operated under individual contracts (non-bundled parks)