The sea side City of Parksville is located on the central east coast of Vancouver Island. The entire area from Nanoose Bay to Bowser, Errington, Coombs, and Whiskey Creek is known as Oceanside.
Parksville is located 147 km north of the Capital city Victoria, 52.5 km north of the Duke Point Ferry Terminal, 37.5 km north of the Departure Bay Ferry Terminal, and approximately 73 km south of the Comox Airport. If you take the Oceanside Route (Hwy 19A) from any of these locations you will pass by open sandy beaches with rolling tides, quaint out-of-the way shops, fabulous scenery, and beautiful evergreen forests.
Parksville is bordered by ocean and is sheltered by beautiful mountains. Parksville is known for one of the finest climates in Canada and is one of the most popular summer vacation destinations of Vancouver Island and BC. Our mild winters allow year round beach exploration and year round golf on any of our 6 scenic golf courses, Morningstar International Golf Club is located in the Parksville area, Fairwinds Golf and Country Club is in nearby Nanoose Bay, Eaglecrest Golf Club, Qualicum Beach Memorial Golf Course, and Pheasant Glen Golf Resort are all located in Qualicum Beach, and Arrowsmith Golf and Country Club is located about 20 min north of Parksville. There are six B.C. provincial parks located within a thirty minutes drive from Parksville, providing every recreational activity imaginable.
You will love Parksville if you love the beach!! We have long sandy beaches, sun, and warm water for  swimming. Parksville’s Community Park offers expansive lengths of public beach right in town, the famous Lion’s Venture Playground and Water Park is a great place to take the kids. There is also, tennis courts, ball parks, a lacrosse box, skateboard park, covered picnic area, and a large field for kite flying all located in the park. The annual Parksville Beach Festival is the home of the Canadian International Sand Sculpting Competition.
The Brant Wildlife Festival is an annual festival that celebrates the migration of up to 20,000 Brant geese from  Mexico to their Alaskan breeding grounds. Since well before the settlement of the town the beaches around Parksville and Qualicum have been the site of an annual migration for tens of thousands of Brant geese. The Mid Island Wildlife Watch Society has established the Brant Goose Feeding Area, the arrival of the Brant geese has been the start of the annual festivities in mid-April. By this time, thousands of the black-duck-sized geese have landed on the beaches and marshlands that surround the Parksville Qualicum area. They take a rest and feed on the herring roe, algae, seaweeds, and eel grasses. The majority of the migrating geese are traveling from Mexico to the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta of western Alaska. You can walk the beach with binoculars to view them and the more that 200 other bird species that are traveling through at the same time or you can take guided tours of the feeding areas and take advantage of the special viewing locations.
Fishing and Forestry are the normal mainstays of the local economy, although they have both been taken over by Tourism during the last decade. The waterfront strip between Parksville and Qualicum Beach to the north is an almost continuous strip of resort development and tourism facilities.
Like its close neighbour Qualicum Beach, Parksville is an enchanting seaside village that will capture your heart. Discover for yourself why so many people return again and again to this central Vancouver Island getaway. The central location of Parksville makes this oceanside playground a convenient base from which to enjoy your new home on Vancouver Island.
It was in 1870 that settler John Hirst first visited the area, but it took another four years before he settled close to the Englishman River. Over the next decade more settlers came into the area, clearing the forests for homesteads.
Parksville, then known as The River, remained a remote outpost until nearly the turn of the century when a crude road was pushed through from Nanaimo. A post office soon followed, with the mail distributed from the cabin of Nelson Parks, whose name was eventually given to the settlement.
Just after the turn of the century large-scale logging began. But it was the extension of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo (E&N) Railway in 1901 that really spurred Parksville's growth. The railway fueled the beginning of a tourism boom, mainly Vancouver Islanders who traveled to Parksville to relax on the incredible beaches. Motels, stores, resorts and campgrounds sprang up to service the tourists, whose numbers quickly rose into the thousands.
Population: 12,000
Geographical location: 49°18'N - 124°17'W
Facts: Average annual hours of sunshine = 2047 hrs.,
Average water temperature of the ocean = 21°C or 70°F,
Average annual precipitation = 950mm or 37".
Average Daily Temperatures:
Jan= 5°C/41°F, Feb= 8°C/46°F, Mar=10°C/50°F,
Apr=13°C/55°F, May=17°C/63°F, Jun=20°C/68°F,
Jul=24°C/75°F, Aug=24°C/75°F, Sep=20°C/68°F,
Oct=14°C/57°F, Nov= 8°C/46°F, Dec= 6°C/43°F.
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