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Beta — a work in progress. Every figure cites its article and shows its working, but the site is young: check the citation before you rely on a number, and read how the numbers are made. When the tool and the agreement disagree, the agreement wins.

Greater Victoria Studio Zone

Victoria is defined by naming communities rather than by describing a line, which makes it the more tractable of the two zones.

The boundary is built and reviewed. All fourteen components — the twelve municipalities and both extensions — were checked by a person against the written definition. To check a location, use the Studio Zone Checker.

The zone on a map

The drawn line is the reviewed boundary the checker runs against — the written definition below remains the authoritative version. Base map tiles load from OpenFreeMap; this reference map never sees anything you type into the checker, so scouted locations stay on your device.

The definition

The Studio Zone for Greater Victoria is the area of land inside the boundaries of the following communities: North Saanich; Sidney; Central Saanich; Saanich; Victoria; Oak Bay; Highlands; View Royal; Esquimalt; Langford; Colwood; and Metchosin.

The twelve communities

Each is matched to its exact legal name in the provincial dataset. Note that North Saanich, Central Saanich and Saanich are three separate municipalities — the agreement names all three, and they are not interchangeable.

  • North SaanichDistrict of North Saanich
  • SidneyTown of Sidney
  • Central SaanichThe Corporation of the District of Central Saanich
  • SaanichThe Corporation of the District of Saanich
  • VictoriaThe Corporation of the City of Victoria
  • Oak BayThe Corporation of the District of Oak Bay
  • HighlandsDistrict of Highlands
  • View RoyalTown of View Royal
  • EsquimaltCorporation of the Township of Esquimalt
  • LangfordCity of Langford
  • ColwoodCity of Colwood
  • MetchosinDistrict of Metchosin

Two extensions

Added on top of the twelve. Both are bounded by named roads rather than by municipal lines, so neither can be assembled from boundary data.

  • Extension west of Metchosin

    Bounding roads sourced
    an extension west of Metchosin which will include the area of land inside the boundaries of Highway 14 (Sooke Road), Gillespie Road, and East Sooke Road
    • Highway 14 (Sooke Road)
    • Gillespie Road
    • East Sooke Road

    Assembled 2026-08-23 by walking the DRA segment graph between measured junctions (Gillespie meets East Sooke Road at a shared vertex; Highway 14 at 39 m). One declared closure crosses the mouth of Sooke Harbour, where East Sooke Road ends and the agreement closes the area with water. 19.7 km². See victoria-extensions.geojson.

  • Extension north of Langford along Highway One

    Bounding roads sourced
    an extension north of Langford along Highway One which will include the area inside the boundaries of: the shoreline on the East; Shawnigan Mill Bay Road/Renfrew Road on the North; and West Shawnigan Lake Road/Shawnigan Lake Road on the West
    • the shoreline on the East
    • Shawnigan Mill Bay Road / Renfrew Road on the North
    • West Shawnigan Lake Road / Shawnigan Lake Road on the West

    Assembled 2026-08-23: west and north bounds walked along the roads (W Shawnigan Lake Rd meets Renfrew Rd at a shared vertex at -123.677 — well west of Shawnigan village); the eastern edge is the Freshwater Atlas shoreline of Saanich Inlet. Two declared closures: a 430 m connector across Shawnigan village, where Renfrew Rd and Shawnigan Mill Bay Rd do not touch, and the southern closure to the zone core. 77.6 km². See victoria-extensions.geojson.

Where the agreement and the road atlas disagree

Each of these returns nothing if the agreement’s wording is matched literally against the provincial dataset. Recorded so the wrong conclusion — that the road is missing — does not get drawn.

  • Shawnigan Mill Bay Road → Shawnigan-Mill Bay RdHyphenated in the dataset, unhyphenated in the agreement.
  • Highway 14 (Sooke Road) → Sooke RdTwo different roads share the name. 130 segments are tagged Highway 14; another 34 are not. The agreement means Highway 14.
  • Renfrew Road → Renfrew RdRoads of the same name exist elsewhere in BC, including in the City of Vancouver. A geographic filter is required.

The ferry rule

The parties hereby confirm that the foregoing paragraph establishing the Studio Zone for Greater Victoria will include only land area as described above that is part of the mainland of Vancouver Island and is accessible by a regular motor passenger vehicle without the assistance of a ferry or other water transportation vehicle or device.

Islands and any land needing a ferry are excluded, even where they fall inside one of the twelve municipalities. North Saanich and Sidney both include islands, so this rule does real work rather than being a formality.

How this page is built

Everything above is transcribed from agreements we hold copies of. The municipal boundaries come from the province’s published dataset, matched on exact legal names. Where a map and the agreement differ, the agreement governs.

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - British Columbia.