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Facts and Stats

Last updated on June 25, 2025

The Province supports research on the arts and culture sector’s impact and role as an economic driver in local communities.

Stats are provided via the Provincial and Territorial Culture Indicators produced by Stats Canada.

Did you know:

  • One in every five Canadian artists (20%) resides in B.C.
  • With 39,700 artists or 1.4% of the total provincial labour force, B.C. has the highest proportion of artists in the labour force than any other Canadian jurisdiction.  

Other interesting facts:

  • British Columbia’s culture GDP is the third highest in Canada and totaled $10.5 billion in 2023  a 5.1% increase from 2022.
  • The largest contributors to this rise were the culture governance, funding, and professional support ($182.5 million or 11.7%) and the visual and applied arts ($117.2 million or 7%) domains.
  • Growth was also strong in the live performance domain, which increased by 14.8% or $86.4 million.
  • As a proportion of B.C.’s total GDP culture accounted for 2.7% in 2023. 
  • Jobs in the cultural domain accounted for 4.2% of all jobs in the province.  
  • There were 122,644 culture jobs in British Columbia in 2023, 2.1% higher than the previous year.  Economy-wide jobs increased by 3% over the same period.