The West End is predominantly middle class with many blocks of tree-lined older residential streets.

The border between the West and South End's of Halifax has crept north as the southern section has gentrified.

The western boundary between the West End and Mainland Halifax is generally considered to run from the Northwest Arm and northward along Dutch Village Road and Joseph Howe Drive.

[3] For the first century and a half of Halifax's history, the area of the West End was occupied by small farms and country estates.

Simpsons built a large department store in the West end in the 1930s, the first retail centre outside the downtown.