Granville Island

Granville Island is a well-known shopping region within a peninsula in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. It is located directly across from Downtown Vancouver's peninsula, in False Creek under the south end of the Granville Street Bridge.

Originally, the peninsula was once an industrial manufacturing area. Nowadays, it has been changed into a major tourist destination and a working neighborhood. Granville Island was named "One of the World's Greatest Places" in a 2004 Project for Public Spaces vote.

On Granville Island are a lot of popular attractions, including an extensive marina, the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, a very large public market, Carousel Theatre and the Arts Club Theatre Company, different performing arts theatres, numerous fine art galleries, the False Creek Community Centre and various unique shopping boutiques. Still left over from the Island's industrial peak are two areas remaining, the concrete plant and a machine shop.

Granville Island went through a major redevelopment during the 1970s and lots of community art studios have stayed since that time such as: a Glassblowing studio, 2 Co-op Printmaking studios, the Circle Craft Shop, a Luthier that is a master sake maker, a Wood Co-Op Shop and numerous Woodworkers Studios, boat builders, the B.C. Potter's Guild, a Fine Art Print Studio, and fashionable bead shops and many jewelery stores among others. Since the early 1990s, a daily Farmer's Market has been existing within that area and was actually the first contemporary Farmer's Market within the Vancouver area.

The Granville Island Public Market features various local artists and day vendors producing a delicious array of Vancouver culinary offerings and artistic talent. There are about 50 permanent vendor stalls within the market and an additional 100 day vendors who have stalls all around the market and sell a variety of Artisan cottage-industry foods and handicrafts on a rotational basis.

The 8 lane Granville Street Bridge is 27.4m above Granville Island and it spans False Creek. This bridge is a part of Hwy 99 within the city of Vancouver; B.C.