In local use, it tends to refer to urban and suburban areas only and does not include parts of the regional district such as Bowen Island, although industries such as the film industry even include Squamish, Whistler and Hope as being in "the Vancouver area" or "in Greater Vancouver".

As a geographic region, Greater Vancouver is part of the Lower Mainland, one of British Columbia's three main geospatial/cultural divisions, and overlaps with the Lower Fraser Valley, with the Central and Upper Fraser Valley areas to the east being in the Fraser Valley Regional District, which was created from two others upon the expansion of the Greater Vancouver Regional District to include Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.

Other forms of regional governance and administration whose jurisdiction Greater Vancouver is in are the North Vancouver and Coquitlam Forests Districts, and the Ministry of Environment's Lower Mainland Region (which includes the Sunshine Coast, the Fraser Health Authority and the New Westminster Land District, among others).

[10] Federally, the electorates in the Greater Vancouver region elect Conservative, New Democratic, and Liberal members of Parliaments – the region is an important bedrock of left-of-centre support in conservative-leaning Western Canada; along with the NDP's strength on Vancouver Island, coastal BC often accounts for over half of left-of-center MPs west of Ontario in most parliaments.

However, the BC NDP tends to draw greater support from ridings on the east side of Vancouver, Burnaby, the Tri-Cities, and parts of Surrey.

By contrast, the BC Liberals are stronger on the west side of Vancouver, the North Shore, the Fraser Valley, and held every seat in Richmond from 1991 to 2020.

Vicki Huntington, an Independent member of the Legislative Assembly, has represented the riding of Delta South since 2009.

Between 1986 and 2013, every premier of British Columbia (other than Dan Miller from August 25, 1999, to February 24, 2000) represented a riding from within Greater Vancouver.

After Christy Clark lost her seat in Vancouver-Point Grey in the 2013 provincial election, and until David Eby succeeded John Horgan in 2022, premiers represented ridings outside Greater Vancouver.

Emery Barnes, a football player elected to the Legislature alongside Rosemary Brown in 1972, and stayed in that capacity until 1996, serving as the Speaker from 1994.