Living in the West End of Vancouver I spend many evenings and weekends walking my dog through one of the most beautiful parks in North America; Stanley Park is a 404.9 hectare (1,001 acre) urban park bordering downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was opened in 1888 by David Oppenheimer in the name of Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor-General of Canada.
It is more than 10% larger than New York City's Central Park and almost half the size of London's Richmond Park. The park attracts an estimated eight million visitors every year,including locals and tourists, who come for its recreational facilities and its natural attributes. An 8.8 kilometres (5.5 mi) seawall path circles the park, which is used by 2.5 million pedestrians, cyclists, and inline skaters every year. Much of the park remains forested with an estimated half million trees that can be as tall as 76 metres (249 ft) and hundreds of years old.There are approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi) of trails and roads in the park, which are patrolled by the Vancouver Police Department's equine mounted squad. The Project for Public Spaces has ranked Stanley Park as the sixteenth best park in the world and sixth best in North America.