Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada

🇨🇦 Nanaimo is a city on the east coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It is known as "The Harbour City". The city was previously known as the "Hub City", which has been attributed to its original layout design where the streets radiated out from the shoreline like the spokes of a wagon wheel, as well as its generally centralised location on Vancouver Island. Nanaimo is also the headquarters of the Regional District of Nanaimo.

Economy The original economic driver was coal mining; however, the forestry industry supplanted it in the early 1960s with the building of the MacMillan Bloedel pulp mill at Harmac. Today the pulp mill is owned by the employees and local investors and injects well over half a million dollars a day into the local economy. The largest employer is the provincial government. The service, retail and tourism industries are also big contributors to the local economy.

Technological development on Nanaimo has been growing with companies such as "Inuktun" and the establishment of government-funded Innovation Island as a site to help Nanaimo-based technological start ups by giving them access to tools, education and venture capital.

Recently higher-density real estate development has been centred in the Old City / Downtown area, as well as the construction of a city-funded waterfront conference centre. Nanaimo has also been experiencing job growth in the technology sector.