Every park in Nanaimo, and what you will actually find there
Nanaimo has 333 parks and open spaces. Most park lists cover eight or ten. This is the map for the rest of them, and for the question you actually have, which is usually whether there is a playground, a washroom or somewhere to park before you put everyone in the car.
One thing to know before you use it. The City publishes detail for about half its parks. The other 166 appear in the data with a name, an address and a boundary and nothing else. We have left them on the map rather than tidying them away, because a park with no published detail is still a park at the end of somebody's street.
Gold pins are the nine landmark parks. Green pins have published detail. Grey pins are parks where the City records only a location. Selecting any pin opens what is known about it, including when nothing is.
What you can filter by
Each filter shows how many parks it returns before you press it, so a filter that only has four parks behind it says so rather than looking broken.
| Filter | Parks | Where the answer comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Landmark | 9 | Our pick of the ones most people are looking for |
| Playground | 71 | Counted play equipment, or the City tagging the park for playground use |
| Water park | 4 | Named in the City park description |
| Washroom | 18 | City public washroom data, with hours |
| Swimming | 19 | City activity tag |
| Sports | 33 | City activity tags across twelve sports |
| Off leash | 12 | Animal Responsibility Bylaw 7316, Schedule B |
| Picnic | 53 | City activity tag |
| Walking | 41 | City activity tags for trails and walking |
| Rated accessible | 61 | City accessibility rating |
| Partly accessible | 26 | City accessibility rating |
Two things about those numbers are worth saying out loud.
The playground filter uses two sources that disagree. 49 parks have play equipment counted on the ground, 61 carry the City's playground tag, and the two lists only partly overlap. We use both, which gives 71, because dropping either would hide real playgrounds from you.
The accessibility filters are a floor, not a full picture. 192 parks carry no City rating at all. An unrated park has not failed anything, it simply has not been assessed, so please do not read a park missing from that filter as a park you cannot use.
The nine landmark parks
These are ours, not the City's. There is no landmark field in the data, so this is a judgement call about which parks people ask us about when they are working out where to live.
Beban Park
The busiest park in the city by a distance, with 30 recorded activities against 25 for the next one down. Sports fields, courts, trails, a playground, washrooms and one of the twelve off-leash areas, all on one site off Bowen Road.
Bowen Park
The one people mean when they say the park in the middle of town. Twenty-five activities, including the odder ones the city does not have much of elsewhere: curling, lawn bowling, disc golf and a duck pond.
Westwood Lake Park
A lake circuit close enough to town to walk before work, with a beach, a playground and an off-leash area on the far side. Rated partially accessible.
Maffeo Sutton Park
The harbour park downtown, with a lagoon, a playground and the ferry across to Saysutshun. The swimming here is not lifeguarded, which is worth knowing before you let anyone loose in the water.
Kinsmen Park
This is Departure Bay Beach, also called Kin Beach. Sand, a summer swimming area, a fenced playground and washrooms. If you are searching a map for Departure Bay Beach, this is the name it sits under.
Departure Bay Centennial Park
Not the beach, despite the name. This is the sports side of Departure Bay: tennis and pickleball courts, ball diamonds, a play field and a water park, about two hundred metres inland from the sand.
Pipers Lagoon Park
A headland walk with an isthmus, a lagoon and some of the best sunset ground in the city. It is gated, and the gate closes earlier through the winter, so check the posted hours before an evening walk.
Neck Point Park
Rocky shoreline, pebble coves and trails through Garry oak, with drive-up access that makes it a favourite for divers. The only landmark with no address published in the parks layer.
Buttertubs Marsh Park
A bird and wildlife sanctuary with a loop trail and viewing platforms. Dogs are not permitted anywhere in it, which catches out people who assume any green space on the map is walkable with a dog.
What the City does not publish
The gaps matter as much as the data, because a map that quietly leaves them out looks complete when it is not.
- Parking. There is no park parking dataset at all. The City publishes downtown metered parking and eleven downtown surface lots, and neither tells you anything about whether you can leave a car at a park.
- Washroom seasons. Opening hours are published. Which months those doors are unlocked is not.
- Water park seasons. Only one of the four is described as seasonal. The other three have no published season.
- Playground detail. No age ranges, no equipment types, and no record of which playgrounds have accessible equipment, even where a park page mentions it in passing.
- Park type. There is no neighbourhood, community or destination classification anywhere in the City's published data.
Where we know a gap exists we have said so on the pin rather than leaving the panel blank. Everything on this page was checked on 24 August 2026 and is due for review a year on.
Get the Outdoor Lifestyle guide Trails, beaches, lakes and what the outdoor side of the Island is actually like to live withFrequently asked questions
How many parks does Nanaimo have?
The City of Nanaimo parks layer holds 333 parks and open spaces. That figure is higher than most lists because it counts every ravine, beach access and pocket green as well as the big ones. Around half of them, 166 parks, have nothing published beyond a name, an address and a boundary.
Which Nanaimo parks have a water park?
Four: Departure Bay Centennial Park, Deverill Square Gyro 2 Park, Harewood Centennial Park (Sherry Fields), Mansfield Park. The City names each one in its park description but does not publish opening months or hours as data. Deverill Square is the only one the City calls seasonal outright, so treat the other three as unconfirmed rather than assuming they run all year, and ring Parks, Recreation and Culture before making a trip of it in the shoulder season.
Which park is Departure Bay Beach?
Kinsmen Park, at 2730 Departure Bay Road. It is also called Kin Beach, and it is the one with the sand, the summer swimming area and the fenced playground. Departure Bay Centennial Park is a separate park about two hundred metres inland, with tennis and pickleball courts, ball diamonds and a water park, and no beach at all. Both are worth knowing, and the names catch people out constantly.
Which Nanaimo parks have public washrooms?
18 parks have a washroom recorded in the City's public washroom data, and each one publishes its opening hours. What the City does not publish is which months those washrooms are open, so a set of hours is not a promise that the door is unlocked in February. Parks without a record are not confirmed either way.
Are Nanaimo parks wheelchair accessible?
The City rates 61 parks wheelchair accessible and 26 partially accessible, and rates 54 as not accessible. The important part is that 192 parks carry no rating at all. An unrated park is not a park that failed a rating, it is one the City has not assessed, so a filter for accessible parks is a floor rather than a full picture.
Where to go next
This map answers what is at a park. These answer what a place is like, which is a different question and one the data cannot reach.
- How the Nanaimo trail network fits together, including what the footing is like once the rain sets in.
- Which beach suits which kind of day, and how warm the water actually gets.
- The lakes around town and the freshwater season, which carries more detail on Colliery Dam and Westwood Lake than the City data does.
- Parks, pools and rainy days with children, for the indoor half of the answer.
- The twelve designated off-leash areas in detail, including the seasonal beach rule.
- Moving to Nanaimo, if you are working out whether this is the place.
Park boundaries, addresses, counted amenities, public washrooms and drinking fountains are from City of Nanaimo open data and contain information licenced under the Open Government Licence - Nanaimo. Activities and accessibility ratings were read from the City's individual park pages. Off-leash designations are from Animal Responsibility Bylaw 7316, Schedule B. Verified 24 August 2026.