Kelowna is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley, in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. Its name derives from a Okanagan language term for "grizzly bear". Kelowna ranks as the 22nd largest metropolitan area in Canada.

Nearby communities include the district of West Kelowna (a separate political entity from Kelowna) to the west across Okanagan Lake, Lake Country and Vernon to the north, as well as Peachland to the southwest and, further to the south, Summerland and Penticton.

Kelowna, 1909

Kelowna, 1920

Father Charles M. Pandosy, a French Roman Catholic Oblate missionary, arriving in 1859 was the first European to settle at Kelowna, a place named "L'anse au sable" (Bay of Sand) in reference to the sandy shoreline. Kelowna was officially incorporated in 1905.

Some claim to believe that a lake monster named Ogopogo lives in Lake Okanagan. In the past, naysayers have pointed out the similarities between the so-called monster and a beaver, a log and other less monstrous lake denizens. Nevertheless, local tourism makes use of the Ogopogo legend, and a children's park features an imaginative statue of the fictional creature.