Victoria is the capital city of the Canadian province of British Columbia, located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of 91,867, and the Greater Victoria area has a population of 397,237. The city of Victoria is the seventh most densely populated city in Canada with 4,406 inhabitants per square kilometre (11,410/sq mi).

Victoria is the southernmost major city in Western Canada and is about 100 km (62 mi) southwest from British Columbia's largest city of Vancouver on the mainland. The city is about 100 km (62 mi) from Seattle by airplane, seaplane, ferry, or the Victoria Clipper passenger-only ferry, and 40 km (25 mi) from Port Angeles, Washington, by the ferry Coho across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Named for Queen Victoria, the city is one of the oldest in the Pacific Northwest, with British settlement beginning in 1843. The city has retained a large number of its historic buildings, in particular its two most famous landmarks, the Parliament Buildings (finished in 1897 and home of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia) and the Empress Hotel (opened in 1908). The city's Chinatown is the second oldest in North America, after San Francisco. The region's Coast Salish First Nations peoples established communities in the area long before European settlement, which had large populations at the time of European exploration.

Known as "the Garden City", Victoria is an attractive city and a popular tourism destination and has a regional technology sector that has risen to be its largest revenue-generating private industry. In 2019, Victoria was in the top 20 world cities for quality of life, according to Numbeo.

Prior to the arrival of European navigators in the late 1700s, the Greater Victoria area was home to several communities of Coast Salish peoples, including the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) and W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich) peoples.

The Spanish and British took up the exploration of the northwest coast, beginning with the visits of Juan Pérez in 1774, and of James Cook in 1778. Although the Victoria area of the Strait of Juan de Fuca was not explored until 1790, Spanish sailors visited Esquimalt Harbour (just west of Victoria proper) in 1790, 1791, and 1792.^{[citation needed]}

In 1841, James Douglas was charged with the duty of setting up a trading post on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. Upon the recommendation by George Simpson a new more northerly post should be built in case Fort Vancouver fell into American hands (see Oregon boundary dispute). Douglas founded Fort Victoria on the site of present-day Victoria in anticipation of the outcome of the Oregon Treaty in 1846, extending the British North America/United States border along the 49th parallel from the Rockies to the Strait of Georgia.

In 1843, a Hudson's Bay Company trading post was erected on a site originally called Camosack meaning "rush of water". Known briefly as "Fort Albert", the settlement was renamed Fort Victoria in November 1843, in honour of Queen Victoria. The Songhees established a village across the harbour from the fort. The Songhees' village was later moved north of Esquimalt in 1911.The crown colony was established in 1849. Between 1850–1854, a series of treaty agreements known as the Douglas Treaties were made with indigenous communities to purchase certain plots of land in exchange for goods. These agreements contributed to a town being laid out on the site and made the capital of the colony, though controversy has followed about the ethical negotiation and upholding of rights by the colonial government. The superintendent of the fort, Chief Factor James Douglas, was made the second governor of the Vancouver Island Colony (Richard Blanshard was first governor, Arthur Edward Kennedy was third and last governor), and would be the leading figure in the early development of the city until his retirement in 1864.^{[citation needed]}