The southeast part of the island has one of the warmest climates in Canada, and since the mid-1990s has been mild enough in a few areas to grow Mediterranean crops such as olives and lemons. The population of Vancouver Island was 864,864 as of 2021.

In 1843 the Hudson's Bay Company sent James Douglas to Vancouver Island to select a site for a fort, and a small settlement at the southern tip developed around Fort Victoria. The Treaty of Washington (1846; see Oregon Treaty) established the Island as British territory; it was made a British crown colony in 1849.