Urbanization in Canada

[Docere]

urban

British Columbia 86%
Alberta 84%
Saskatchewan 67%
Manitoba 73%
Ontario 87%
Quebec 81%
New Brunswick 49%
Nova Scotia 57%
Prince Edward Island 45%
Newfoundland 58%

% in large urban population centres (100,000+)

British Columbia 62%
Alberta 57%
Saskatchewan 42%
Manitoba 56%
Ontario 68%
Quebec 59%
New Brunswick 15%
Nova Scotia 34%
Prince Edward Island 0
Newfoundland 34%

[Nouvellecosse]

Interesting how PEI is the most rural in both metrics. It honestly doesn't feel the most rural to me, probably since it's so small geographically and Charlottetown and Summerside loom so large over the whole province. In NS, we have much more rural land that is far more detached from any city or major town. I think the somewhat ironic reason is there's so much development in PEI outside of the urban centres that those areas often don't feel as traditionally rural or isolated. You don't get the same feeling of driving for ages through bucolic or rustic areas that time and the outside world seemingly forgot.

[someone123]

These numbers are likely changing extremely rapidly in the Maritimes. Halifax is growing by around 5% per year and 2% of the provincial population got moved into the CMA in the 2021 census period. Charlottetown is just a bit under the 100,000 cutoff and likely has better services than many areas just over 100,000. Most provinces follow a pattern where around half or more of the provincial population is in some core area.

Statistics Canada has finer-grained geographical data on remoteness in Canada: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/...020002-eng.htm



You could quibble with this map ranking some farming areas well outside of the Southern Ontario metros in a higher category than anywhere in 5 provinces but it's good to try to move to a finer-grained scale than just urban-rural. You could look at economic basis and diversity (resource based vs. services and so on). Some places "look rural" but have an urban economy, and it depends on how people work and travel options.

[Docere]

% of population in metros over 500,000

BC 57%
Alberta 68%
Manitoba 62%
Ontario 68%
Quebec 64%

I used CMAs over 500,000 but also added Oshawa to Toronto and Abbotsford to Vancouver.

Halifax is just short of half a million. 48% live in Halifax CMA. The CMA contains some areas that aren't considered urban by StatCan.

[Changing City]

The proportion in large urban population centres (100,000+), is a bit misleading for BC. Because, (unlike cities like Calgary, Toronto or Montreal), Vancouver hasn't been amalgamated into a megacity, there are a number of Metro Vancouver municipalities which have less than 100,000, but are clearly an urban population centre. New Westminster would be one example. Similarly, Victoria hasn't been amalgamated, so has 99,800 population in 2021, but is much more urban than Saanich, which had 117,000.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ Pretty sure "urban population centres" refers to metro areas rather than municipalities.

[lio45]

To reconcile “56% of Manitobans live in urban areas over 100k” and “62% of Manitobans live in metros over 500k”, what you just said must be wrong.

[lio45]

(I looked Brandon up to confirm it wasn’t above 100k, and since it isn’t, we can directly infer from the stats that 56% of Manitobans live inside Winnipeg city limits while another 6% live in satellite municipalities around Winnipeg.)

[1ajs]

thats about right and that weird orange blob in northern mb is the thompson nickel balt

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by lio45

To reconcile “56% of Manitobans live in urban areas over 100k” and “62% of Manitobans live in metros over 500k”, what you just said must be wrong.

But if it involves city propers, it also doesn't reconcile. For instance, it says 64% of Quebec is in metros over 500k and that 59% is in urban population centres of over 100k. There are about 10 city propers of over 100k in Quebec and their combined population accounts for only about 47% of the province. I used 2016 numbers, but unless there were some huge changes in less than a decade, it wouldn't have gone from 47% to 59% that quickly. And of course it does't say what numbers the original assessment was based on to begin with.

It could be that the +500k number includes the Montreal and QC metro areas (which may not be necessarily be defined as CMAs) while the 100k population centres may use CMAs or census agglomeration. This could trim more from the big metro areas than it adds with new ones. There are several census agglomerations between 100k and 500k within the two big metro areas that it may count in the 500k number but exclude in the 100k number. But either way, city propers doesn't work.

Of course, it's also possible that there's just an error in the data or methodology. Tough to tell without seeing the actual numbers and calculations. But I think it's safe to say that if it were city propers, he would have used a clearer and more specific term than "large urban population centres"

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

^ Pretty sure "urban population centres" refers to metro areas rather than municipalities.

If you add up the CMAs in BC that had over 100,000 people in 2021, It includes Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Abbotsford-Mission, Nanaimo, Kamloops and Chilliwack. Together they're 76% of BC's population. If you add the population of the other 21 CMAs that had less than 100,000 people in 2021, then you get 90% of BC's population living in Metropolitan areas.

So it's either using municipalties, old data, or some other definition of 'urban'.

For Manitoba, there's only one CMA over 500,000, and no others with 100,000. Winnipeg CMA had 834,678 people in the 2021 census, which was 62% of Manitoba. If you take Winnipeg municipality, it had 749,607 people, so 56% of Manitoba's population. That suggests the data for 'urban areas' uses municipalities, not CMAs, while the 'metropolitan' data uses CMAs.

Add the other 5 CMAs wiith population under 100,000, and you get 72% of Manitobans living in CMAs.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

If you add up the CMAs in BC that had over 100,000 people in 2021, It includes Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, Abbotsford-Mission, Nanaimo, Kamloops and Chilliwack. Together they're 76% of BC's population. If you add the population of the other 21 CMAs that had less tha 100,000 people in 2021, then you get 90% of BC's population living in Metropolitan areas.

So it's either using municipalties, old data, or some other definition of 'urban'.

A population centre isn't a CMA though - it's the contiguously built-up portion of a metro area (so almost always smaller as it excludes the rural & exurban parts of CMA). CMAs, by their nature aren't necessarily 100% urbanized.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

A population centre isn't a CMA though - it's the contiguously built-up portion of a metro area (so almost always smaller as it excludes the rural & exurban parts of CMA). CMAs, by their nature aren't necessarily 100% urbanized.

So if you use that data set, (which seems a good one to use for rural vs urban), in 2021 Manitoba has 25% of its population in rural areas, and 75% everywhere else - so 'urban'. BC had 13% in rural areas, and 87% in 'urban'. Ontario was the same. Alberta was 15% rural, 85% urban, and Quebec was 19% rural, 81% urban. So it looks like that's the dataset, but the percentages weren't rounded accurately.

[Docere]

Initial numbers are from this source but 2016.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...al-urban-type/

The rest I got from 2021 census on Statcan website.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by someone123

These numbers are likely changing extremely rapidly in the Maritimes. Halifax is growing by around 5% per year and 2% of the provincial population got moved into the CMA in the 2021 census period. Charlottetown is just a bit under the 100,000 cutoff and likely has better services than many areas just over 100,000. Most provinces follow a pattern where around half or more of the provincial population is in some core area.

Statistics Canada has finer-grained geographical data on remoteness in Canada: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/...020002-eng.htm



You could quibble with this map ranking some farming areas well outside of the Southern Ontario metros in a higher category than anywhere in 5 provinces but it's good to try to move to a finer-grained scale than just urban-rural. You could look at economic basis and diversity (resource based vs. services and so on). Some places "look rural" but have an urban economy, and it depends on how people work and travel options.

We have about 60% of the population living in 2% of the land area. That's well highlighted on this map.

[Docere]

% of population in metro areas over 500,000* 58.6
% of population in CMAs 73.8


* all CMAs over 500,000 plus Oshawa and Abbotsford

[Docere]

Large population centres, 2021 census

Toronto 5,647,656
Montreal 3,675,219
Vancouver 2,426,160
Calgary 1,305,550
Edmonton 1,151,635
Ottawa-Gatineau 1,068,821
Winnipeg 758,515
Quebec City 733,156
Hamilton 729,560
Kitchener 522,888
London 423,369
Victoria 363,222
Halifax 348,634
Oshawa 335,949
Windsor 306,519
Saskatoon 264,637
St. Catharines-Niagara 242,460
Regina 224,996
St. John's 185,565
Kelowna 181,380
Barrie 154,676
Sherbrooke 151,157
Guelph 144,356
Kanata 137,118
Abbotsford 132,300
Trois-Rivieres 128,057
Kingston 127,943
Milton 124,579
Moncton 119,785
White Rock 109,167
Nanaimo 106,079
Brantford 104,413
Chicoutimi-Jonquiere 103,934
Saint-Jerome 100,859

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Docere

Large population centres, 2021 census

Toronto 5,647,656
Montreal 3,675,219
Vancouver 2,426,160
Calgary 1,305,550
Edmonton 1,151,635
Ottawa-Gatineau 1,068,821
Winnipeg 758,515
Quebec City 733,156
Hamilton 729,560
Kitchener 522,888
London 423,369
Victoria 363,222
Halifax 348,634
Oshawa 335,949
Windsor 306,519
Saskatoon 264,637
St. Catharines-Niagara 242,460
Regina 224,996
St. John's 185,565
Kelowna 181,380
Barrie 154,676
Sherbrooke 151,157
Guelph 144,356
Kanata 137,118
Abbotsford 132,300
Trois-Rivieres 128,057
Kingston 127,943
Milton 124,579
Moncton 119,785
White Rock 109,167
Nanaimo 106,079
Brantford 104,413
Chicoutimi-Jonquiere 103,934
Saint-Jerome 100,859

Kanata is part of Ottawa and Chicoutimi-Jonquière is part of the City of Saguenay. The City of Ottawa now has over a million people and we're talking about just the Ontario side.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Kanata is part of Ottawa and Chicoutimi-Jonquière is part of the City of Saguenay. The City of Ottawa now has over a million people and we're talking about just the Ontario side.

He's referring to POPCTR (continuous built up urban area), not CMA (commuter watershed).

[niwell]

I get the distinction but in Ottawa's case it doesn't really make sense to exclude Kanata when Orleans and Barrhaven are included. It's an artificial boundary between the two and Kanata is very much part of what's considered Ottawa.