Enhancements and Additions to VanMap

We are pleased to announce the following additions and enhancements to VanMap. Some of these have been available for a while, but were not previously announced.

October 2008

• The latest bird's-eye view photos of the city are now available on VanMap. These photos add one more year to VanMap's long series of aerial photos which date back to 1994. These photos were taken April 26, 2008. Visit VanMap 2008 Orthophotos today and get a unique glimpse of Vancouver from overhead.
• The Property Information Report has been updated to include the 2008 assessed values.
• The 2008 Voting Divisions and Voting Places have been added and will remain through to the election on November 15.

June 2008

• Railways are now shown so that you can see the alignments for the major rail lines in the City. They are available at all scales.
• Links are provided to some other municipal mapping sites and relevant sites. If you are aware of other sites that should be included in this list, please let us know and we will look into adding them.
• Bridges and Related Structures are now being shown; they are available at all scales.
• Zoom Goto has been enhanced. You can now zoom directly to a property if you know its PID (from the Land Titles Office), its folio number (from the BC Assessment Authority), or its plan number. You have always been able to zoom directly to a particular hundred block (e.g. the 400 block of W. 12th Avenue) but now you can just enter the street name if you don't know the hundred block and VanMap will list all of the hundred blocks for that street name and you can choose the one you want.
• Vancouver School Board French Immersion School Catchment Areas are now shown. These are shown at all scales and are contained in the Public Places layer group near the top of the legend.
• Poster Cylinders have been added to VanMap. These are those places where someone can legitimately put posters on City property.
• Neighbourhood Integrated Service Team (NIST) area boundaries have been added in the layer group called Administrative and Service Areas which is located near the bottom of the legend. NIST is a very important City program supporting ne ighbourhoods, see for more information.
• Property identifiers (PID) from the Land Titles Office have been added to the report that is displayed when you double click on a property. You must be zoomed in to closer than 1:6000 scale to be able to obtain this report.
• Traffic Counts - Directional Volume layer has been added to to display automated traffic count information, this is in addition to the existing manual traffic counts. An Auto Count Reporting function is now available with the new Traffic Counts - Directional Volume layer.

What is VanMap?

VanMap is a Web-based map system that lets you have Vancouver at your fingertips. VanMap pulls together information and data from a variety of sources, and puts it into maps you can view, save or print out. It's not your average road map either. There are dozens of features you can turn on and off with the click of a button. VanMap doesn't just offer street names and intersections, for example it can show you:

• property lines
• zoning information
• sewer mains
• water mains
• addresses
• public places

Need zoning, sewer or street information for building or renovating? Thinking of moving and not sure where the schools are located? Trying to remember exactly where that great looking park is located? Have an appointment and want to make sure you get to the right place? VanMap can show you. VanMap also links you directly to community Web pages that offer details on amenities, services, and events in all Vancouver neighbourhoods. And look for more great features to be added in the future.

VanMap has three versions

• VanMap ActiveX Control version for Windows and Internet Explorer
• VanMap Java Edition version for Mac and for Windows: This version has less functionality than the ActiveX Control Viewer version, but works with more browsers, on any OS.
• VanMapLite: VanMapLite has even fewer layers and less functionality than the other two versions.

The first two versions require an Autodesk MapGuide 6.5 viewer installed on your computer, while VanMapLite does not require any plug-ins or viewers and works with all PNG (Portable Network Graphics) supporting browsers on any OS. (Almost all popular browsers support the PNG image format.)

Windows users are encouraged to use VanMap ActiveX Control Viewer version with Internet Explorer and Mac users are encouraged to use VanMap Java Edition Viewer version with Safari in order to take advantage of a richer version of VanMap.

We have made our best effort to support the more popular browsers and operating systems. Unfortunately, our effort is limited by what the underlying Autodesk MapGuide software supports. Please check the browser compatibility chart for more information about supported browsers and operating systems.

In just a few steps VanMap can be loaded on your computer. Please take a look at the links in the blackbar above, particularly Setup & Compatibility and Help & Documentation, and when you're ready, start VanMap.

VanMap Home will always bring you back to this page. VanMap news and updates will be available from Recent News in the navigation bar. Check out the FAQs for browser, platform and troubleshooting information. We hope you enjoy using VanMap!

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Did you know?

You can use Zoning Districts and Zoning District Labels to see zoning information.