British Columbia Radon Map: Every Home Health Canada Tested, and What It Read

1,460 homes across British Columbia were long-term tested for radon in the two federal surveys. Every one is a dot on this map, coloured by what it read, with the number of tested homes printed beside every district figure.

The Map

Every dot is one tested house. Zoom in for street names. Shaded districts had no home tested in either survey.

under 100100 to 147148 to 199200 and aboveno homes tested

1,460 measurements shown, and 13 more with no district recorded that cannot be placed. Dot positions inside a district are illustrative, not addresses. The survey records which district a home was in, never where it stood. Tap any dot for its reading, or any district for its count and median. Rural districts here cover thousands of square kilometres, so a dot in one says very little about any particular corner of it.

Built from Health Canada's published measurements under the Open Government Licence. We do not sell radon testing or mitigation.

What the Numbers Say

11%

of tested British Columbia homes at or above Canada's 200 Bq/m³ action level

median reading, Bq/m³

2,941

highest single reading, in V0B

British Columbia sits 20th of the 33 places mapped with a hundred or more tested homes, at 11.0% at or above the action level, between Halifax at 35.2% and Toronto and the GTA at 2.2%. All on the same two surveys and the same method. The spread between places is real, and the spread between houses on one street is bigger still.

The Number Changes Depending on Whose Limit You Use

Canada acts at 200 Bq/m³. The United States EPA acts at about 148. The World Health Organization sets a reference level of 100. Applied to the same 1,460 homes:

11%

at or above Canada's 200

16%

at or above the US EPA's 148

26%

at or above the WHO's 100

Same houses, same measurements. Why the three numbers differ, and which one to use.

By Postal District, with the Sample Sizes Shown

Read the count column before the median column. A district resting on four houses is a hint, not a verdict, and those rows are greyed. The land area column matters too: a district covering ten thousand square kilometres is an average across a region, not a neighbourhood.

District	Land km²	Homes tested	Median	Highest	At or over 200
V2M	48	14	299	845	9
V1N	1,820	12	223	784	7
V4T	67	19	166	1174	7
V0H	9,879	32	156	1772	13
V1X	219	22	146	418	4
V1B	388	16	120	284	3
V1L	921	12	117	357	2
V0B	19,671	49	106	2941	13
V1A	2,165	11	106	393	3
V1V	60	19	97	373	4
V1W	76	22	92	262	3
V0G	15,580	41	86	1323	10
V1T	26	10	85	371	1
V8G	9,722	56	84	886	9
V1Z	818	13	83	589	2
V2N	3,604	31	81	816	7
V0C	322,136	91	78	894	15
V1P	1,083	13	77	295	1
V0A	20,696	13	74	601	2
V1R	811	17	72	722	4
V0X	10,636	12	68	349	1
V0E	48,020	38	67	391	3
V1J	181	51	66	240	4
V1C	2,488	21	64	231	1
V1G	9,955	45	64	255	2
V2J	21,541	28	60	296	2
V1Y	18	23	52	188	0
V2S	35	40	49	532	1
V3G	197	27	49	465	1
V1E	456	22	48	263	2
V2K	1,553	33	41	762	3
V9B	71	12	41	78	0
V0J	175,022	96	38	300	5
V2A	257	15	37	244	1
V0K	35,796	21	36	283	2
V8Z	19	12	36	119	0
V8N	15	12	35	61	0
V2T	38	38	33	112	0
V2R	241	10	28	114	0
V0N	21,445	30	27	265	3
V0R	8,323	19	24	292	1
V8C	239	14	22	91	0

42 districts have ten or more tested homes, which is where these figures start to mean something. The table shows those; 94 districts with thinner samples are on the map but not listed here. 55 districts have no measurement at all and are shaded on the map.

What Actually Settles It

Nothing on this page describes your house. Radon varies enormously between homes on the same street, because it depends on how each building sits on and draws air from the ground beneath it. The highest reading here is 2,941 Bq/m³ and it sits in a district whose median is far below it. A long-term test in your own home is the only measurement that tells you anything about your home.

Also: every C-NRPP certified radon company here, the other city and province maps, and what radon actually is.

Sources and method. Radon measurements: Health Canada, Radon and Thoron Data From Canadian Homes (Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna and Abbotsford CMAs) pooled with the Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes 2009-2011, both under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Boundaries: Statistics Canada 2021 cartographic forward sortation area file, same licence. Percentages are calculated from the individual measurements shown, not quoted from a summary. Land areas are from the Statistics Canada boundary file.