[1] It also lends its name to the Chilliwack River, and group of aboriginal people, the Ts'elxwéyeqw (also spelt Ts'elxwíqw or Sts'elxwíqw).

The archeological record shows evidence of Stó:lō people in the Fraser Valley, or S'ólh Téméxw, 10,000 years ago.

In the mid-nineteenth century, thousands of gold miners transited the area en route to the goldfields of the upper Fraser River.

On 26 April 1873, the "Corporation of the Township of Chilliwhack" (note the variant spelling) became the third municipality incorporated by the Province of British Columbia.

After the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, many residents began to cross the Fraser River at Minto Landing to ride the train from Harrison Mills.

[8][9] On 20 April 1891, Richard Plunkett Cooke, George de Wolf, and Walter E. Graveley established the Chilliwhack Railway Company.

[11] On 4 October 1910, the British Columbia Electric Railway began operating regularly scheduled passenger service on the New Westminster–Chilliwack Interurban Line.

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the camp was expanded to garrison Canadian Army units for the defence of Canada's West Coast.

[15] Chilliwack is located in the Upper Fraser Valley, 100 kilometres (60 mi) east of Vancouver on the Trans-Canada Highway.

The Chilliwack Batholith forms much of the North Cascades in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and the U.S. state of Washington.

The city is bounded in the north by the Fraser River, in the east by the Eastern Hillsides, in the south by the Canada–US border, and in the west by the Vedder Canal.

Bands originating in Chilliwack include: These Kids Wear Crowns, Mystery Machine, and The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets.

The Downtown Chilliwack Business Improvement Association is hosting music in Central Park on Saturdays for the month of August 2022.

[19] The Chilliwack School of Performing Arts provides pre-professional training in acting, singing and dancing to children ages 3–18 at their downtown location.

The Chilliwack Jets of the Pacific Junior Hockey League plays its home games at the Sardis Ice Complex.

[32] The Canadian Junior Football League club the Valley Huskers plays its home games at Exhibition Stadium in Chilliwack.

The climate is typical oceanic (Köppen: Cfb) but with some influence of the land mass being some distance from the sea, similar to Orléans, France (although the former has a precipitation more than twice as long and with a tendency towards the Mediterranean pattern).

[33][34][35] Chilliwack's mild climate with limited extremes provides excellent growing conditions for a wide variety of crops and agricultural products.

[38] Precipitation falls mostly as rain, with snow limited to the surrounding mountains, except for two or three weeks per year generally in December or January when arctic outflow occurs.

Summers in Chilliwack are usually sunny and warm, with long days (light out until well after 10 pm in June with dusk that lasts for hours) and with occasional stretches of heat where temperatures rise above 30 °C (86 °F).

Due to its location at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley, there has been some debate about preserving Chilliwack's air quality.

Abbotsford International Airport is located about 42 km (26 mi) west of Downtown Chilliwack and offers scheduled service to Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Victoria, where passengers can connect to anywhere.

[50] A four-lane to six-lane expressway from Horseshoe Bay to Hope runs through Chilliwack on the Lower Mainland section of the Trans-Canada Highway.

Chilliwack Transit System consists of a fleet of 9 buses that operate along regularly scheduled routes throughout the metropolitan area.

[51] In 2019, the South Fraser Community Rail Society was launched by former BC premier Bill Vander Zalm and former mayor of Langley Township Rick Green, to resurrect passenger service using the former BCER right-of-way.