Anchored by the downtown town centre of Lonsdale, with which its urban core is largely synonymous, it consists of the smallest and most urbanized of the communities situated north of the city of Vancouver, and is part of the Metro Vancouver regional district, though it has significant industry of its own – including shipping, chemical production, and film production.

[5] Not long after the District of North Vancouver was formed, an early land developer and second reeve of the new council, James Cooper Keith, personally underwrote a loan[6] to commence construction of a road which undulated from West Vancouver to Deep Cove amid the slashed sidehills, swamps, and burnt stumps.

The road, sometimes under different names and not always contiguous, is still one of the most important east-west thoroughfare carrying traffic across the North Shore.

[6] Keith joined Edwin Mahon and together they controlled North Vancouver Land & Improvement Company.

By 1911 the streetcar system extended west to the Capilano River and east to Lynn Valley.

Since the motivation for creating the city was to reserve local tax revenue for the work of putting in services for the property owned by the major developers, there was little reason to take on any of the burden beyond the extent of their holdings.

[citation needed] The eastern boundary of that new municipality is for the most part the Capilano River and a community that is easily distinguished from the two North Vancouvers has since developed.

The Depression again bankrupted the city, while the Second World War turned North Vancouver into the Clydeside of Canada with a large shipbuilding program.

Housing the shipyard workers provided a new building boom, which continued on through the post-war years.

North Vancouver has an oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb) with cool, rainy winters and dry, warm summers.

The median household income (after-taxes) in North Vancouver is $52,794, a bit lower than the national average at $54,089.

North Vancouver has one of the highest Middle Eastern[a] population ratios for any Canadian city at 11.3% as of 2021, with the vast majority being Persian.