City Detail

Kelowna ( (listen) kə-LOH-nə) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word kiʔláwnaʔ, referring to a male grizzly bear.Kelowna is the province's third-largest metropolitan area (after Vancouver and Victoria), its seventh-largest city overall, and the largest in the Interior. It is the 20th-largest metropolitan area in Canada. The city proper encompasses 211.85 km2 (81.80 sq mi), and the census metropolitan area 2,904.86 km2 (1,121.57 sq mi). Kelowna's estimated population in 2020 is 222,748 in the metropolitan area and 142,146 in the city proper. After many years of suburban expansion into the surrounding mountain slopes, the city council adopted a long-term plan intended to increase density instead - particularly in the downtown core.