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Description: This reference guide is intended for users of the Census Subdivisions Boundary File. The guide provides an overview of the file, the general methodology used to create it, and important technical information for users.

Description: The Census Subdivision Boundary File contains the boundaries of all census subdivisions which combined cover all of Canada. A census subdivision is a municipality or an area treated as an equivalent to a municipality for statistical purposes (for example, Indian reserves and unorganized territories). The file provides a framework for mapping and spatial analysis using commercially available geographic information systems (GIS) or other mapping software.

The Census Subdivision Boundary File is portrayed in Lambert conformal conic projection and is based on the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83). A reference guide is available (92-162-G).

Description: This report provides a summary of changes to municipal boundaries, status and names. The list is usually produced on an annual basis for changes that occurred during the previous year. A five year list is produced on Census of population years.

Description: This product contains contiguously settled area (CSA) boundaries for a subset of Canadian population centres for 2010 and 2020 with user documentation. The CSA boundaries are derived from land cover data and represent the geographic extent of settled areas based on their physical footprint on the landscape. The boundaries can be used for reference, mapping and spatial analysis of settled areas and urban ecosystems. The CSA boundaries are created and maintained under the umbrella of the Census of Environment, and will support Statistics Canada's ecosystem accounting efforts.

Description: These tables are available for each major Census of Population days of release, starting with population and dwelling counts. They will present focused information for various levels of geography. These tables allow users to perform simple rank and sort functions, and include percentage distributions and percentage change from previous censuses to facilitate comparisons between years and different geographic areas.

Description: A thematic map focuses on the spatial variability of a specific distribution or theme (such as population density or average annual income) for standard geographic areas, whereas a reference map focuses on the location and names of geographic features. Thematic maps normally include some location or reference information to help users familiarize themselves with the geographic area covered on the map.

A reference guide is available (92-143-G).

Description: The Canadian Statistical Geospatial Explorer empowers users to discover geo enabled data holdings of Statistics Canada at various levels of geography including at the neighbourhood level. Users are able to visualize, thematically map, spatially explore and analyze, export and consume data in various formats. Users can also view the data superimposed on satellite imagery, topographic and street layers.

Description: This profile presents information from the 2021 Census of Population for various levels of geography, including provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas, communities and census tracts. Data are from the 2021 Census of Population and are available according to the major releases of the 2021 Census release dates: February 9, 2022 – Population and dwelling counts; April 27, 2022 – Age, Sex at birth and gender, Type of dwelling; July 13, 2022 – Families, households and marital status, Canadian military experience, Income; August 17, 2022 – Language; September 21, 2022 – Indigenous peoples, Housing; October 26, 2022 – Immigration, place of birth, and citizenship, Ethnocultural and religious diversity, Mobility and migration; November 30, 2022 – Education, Labour, Language of work, Commuting, Instruction in the official minority language.

Description:

This product presents information from the Census of Population for various levels of geography, including provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas, communities and census tracts. Data are from the Census of Population and include characteristics for: population, age, sex, dwellings, families, marital status, language, income, education and labour as examples.

Description:

Focusing on a selected geographic area, this product presents data highlights for each of the major releases of the 2021 Census. These data highlights are presented through text, tables and figures. A map image of the geographic area is also included in the product. The geographic levels presented in this product include Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas, census agglomerations, census divisions and census subdivisions.

Description:

Series Description - The Basic Summary Tabulations Series (1996 Census of Population) provides data based on approximately 75 cross-tabulations of three or four census variables at five very detailed levels of geography. This series shows specific characteristics of the Canadian population considered either as individuals or in terms of their family or household relations, or with a characteristic pertaining to Canadian dwellings. The BSTs provide data based on a 20% sample except for Age, Sex, Marital Status and Common-law Status which are collected from a 100% sample.

These tables are available on diskette and cover all census variable information such as Demographics; Families (Number, Type and Structure); Structural Type of Dwelling and Household Size; Immigration and Citizenship; Languages (e.g. Mother Tongue); Aboriginal Origins, Ethnic Origin and Visible Minorities (Population Groups); Labour Market Activities and Household Activities (unpaid work); Place of Work and Mode of Transportation; Education; Mobility and Migration; as well as Individual and Family Income.

For ease in understanding the five levels of geography, the OLC numbers have related the last 3 digits to reflect the different geographies. See the information below.

**Under Geographic Coverage, we have listed the five geographies with OLC numbers.

BSTs ending with the following OLC #s represent:

001 - Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions002 - Census Metropolitan Areas, Tracted Census Agglomerations and Census Tracts003 - Canada, Provinces, Territories, Federal Electoral Districts (1987 Representation Order) and Enumeration Areas004 - Canada, Provinces, Territories and Federal Electoral Districts (1996 Representation Order)005 - Canada, Provinces, Territories and Forward Sortation Areas

Description:

Series Description - The Basic Summary Tabulations Series (1996 Census of Population) provides data based on approximately 75 cross-tabulations of three or four census variables at five very detailed levels of geography. This series shows specific characteristics of the Canadian population considered either as individuals or in terms of their family or household relations, or with a characteristic pertaining to Canadian dwellings. The BSTs provide data based on a 20% sample except for Age, Sex, Marital Status and Common-law Status which are collected from a 100% sample.

These tables are available on diskette and cover all census variable information such as Demographics; Families (Number, Type and Structure); Structural Type of Dwelling and Household Size; Immigration and Citizenship; Languages (e.g. Mother Tongue); Aboriginal Origins, Ethnic Origin and Visible Minorities (Population Groups); Labour Market Activities and Household Activities (unpaid work); Place of Work and Mode of Transportation; Education; Mobility and Migration; as well as Individual and Family Income.

For ease in understanding the five levels of geography, the OLC numbers have related the last 3 digits to reflect the different geographies. See the information below.

**Under Geographic Coverage, we have listed the five geographies with OLC numbers.

BSTs ending with the following OLC #s represent:

001 - Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions002 - Census Metropolitan Areas, Tracted Census Agglomerations and Census Tracts003 - Canada, Provinces, Territories, Federal Electoral Districts (1987 Representation Order) and Enumeration Areas004 - Canada, Provinces, Territories and Federal Electoral Districts (1996 Representation Order)005 - Canada, Provinces, Territories and Forward Sortation Areas

Description:

Series Description - The Basic Summary Tabulations Series (1996 Census of Population) provides data based on approximately 75 cross-tabulations of three or four census variables at five very detailed levels of geography. This series shows specific characteristics of the Canadian population considered either as individuals or in terms of their family or household relations, or with a characteristic pertaining to Canadian dwellings. The BSTs provide data based on a 20% sample except for Age, Sex, Marital Status and Common-law Status which are collected from a 100% sample.

These tables are available on diskette and cover all census variable information such as Demographics; Families (Number, Type and Structure); Structural Type of Dwelling and Household Size; Immigration and Citizenship; Languages (e.g. Mother Tongue); Aboriginal Origins, Ethnic Origin and Visible Minorities (Population Groups); Labour Market Activities and Household Activities (unpaid work); Place of Work and Mode of Transportation; Education; Mobility and Migration; as well as Individual and Family Income.

For ease in understanding the five levels of geography, the OLC numbers have related the last 3 digits to reflect the different geographies. See the information below.

**Under Geographic Coverage, we have listed the five geographies with OLC numbers.

BSTs ending with the following OLC #s represent:

001 - Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions002 - Census Metropolitan Areas, Tracted Census Agglomerations and Census Tracts003 - Canada, Provinces, Territories, Federal Electoral Districts (1987 Representation Order) and Enumeration Areas004 - Canada, Provinces, Territories and Federal Electoral Districts (1996 Representation Order)005 - Canada, Provinces, Territories and Forward Sortation Areas

Description:

This annual publication includes detailed analysis and charts depicting construction activity over the last decade. The tables are comparable to those in the monthly publication 64-001-XPB Building permits. In addition, the annual publication includes revised monthly data, on a seasonally adjusted basis, for the previous three years.

Description:

Settlements are important hubs for residential, commercial and industrial activity, however, the size, structure and form of settlements over time can have a variety of social, economic and environmental implications. Statistics Canada has developed a new concept and dataset to delineate or map boundaries for Canada's settlements. This article presents some of the early geographic results of this project.

Description:

Area-based indicators are commonly used to measure and track health outcomes by socio-economic group. This is largely because of the absence of information about individuals in health health administrative databases. This study compares area-based and individual indicators.

Description:

This working paper reviews some of the different approaches that Statistics Canada supports to help users segment and measure the urban-rural continuum

The term urban refers to a concentration of population at a high density. But beyond this basic understanding there is no single universally-accepted view of what constitutes urban.

Statistics Canada has sought to ensure that users have at their disposal various options to define the urban-rural continuum. This approach allows users to define their own construct of urban in order to meet their specific analytical and policy related needs.

Description: Part 2 of this paper analyses the characteristics of migrants. It offers a model for identifying the socioeconomic characteristics influencing the probability of migration and the choice of destination. The results of such a model provide a better understanding of the impact of internal migrations on the socioeconomic composition of communities. In this article, the authors analyze the migration flows of Canadians between 2001 and 2006 using the 2006 Census data. First, the major internal migration movements are described at various geographic levels. The results can show certain phenomena that have marked the 2001-2006 intercensal period, such as the overall decline in mobility, the attraction exercised by Alberta, the urban expansion and the outflow of young people from rural areas. Second, various migrant characteristics are examined using a multivariate statistical model including several types of destination. The results help better understand the socio-demographic characteristics associated with mobility status, such as age, marital status, education, family structure or immigrant status.

Description:

The term ecumene comes from the Greek word oikoumene , which means inhabited land or inhabited world. Geographers generally use the term to refer to land where people have made their permanent home, and to all work areas that are considered occupied and used for agricultural or any other economic purpose.

This working paper first examines the ecumene concept from a geographic viewpoint and highlights some of the geographic literature. It also examines the cartographic issues, such as the limitations of the choropleth map, and then provides an overview of Statistics Canada's use of the ecumene in its thematic mapping program. Finally, the paper provides details on the development of the population ecumene for the 2006 Census.

Description:

The classification and identification of locations where persons report to be more or less healthy or have more or less social capital, within a specific area such as a health region, is tremendously helpful for understanding place and health associations. The objective of the proposed study is to classify and map areas within the Zone 6 Health Region (Figure 1) of Nova Scotia (Halifax Regional Municipality and Annapolis Valley regions) according to health status (Dimension 1) and social capital (Dimension 2). We abstracted responses to questions about self-reported health status, mental health, and social capital from the master files of the Canadian Community Health Survey (Cycles 1.1, 1.2 and 2.1), National Population Health Survey (Cycle 5), and the General Social Survey (Cycles 13, 14, 17, and 18). Responses were geocoded using the Statistics Canada Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF+) and imported into a geographical information system (GIS) so that the postal code associated with the response will be assigned to a latitude and longitude within the Nova Scotia Zone 6 health region. Kernel density estimators and additional spatial interpolators were used to develop statistically-smoothed surfaces of the distribution of respondent values for each question. The smoothing process eliminates the possibility of revealing individual respondent location and confidential Statistics Canada sampling frame information. Using responses from similar questions across multiple surveys improves the likelihood of detecting heterogeneity among the responses within the health region area, as well as the accuracy of the smoothed map classification.

Description:

On November 26 2006, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held an international workshop on defining and measuring metropolitan regions. The reasons the OECD organized this workshop are listed below.

1. Metropolitan Regions have become a crucial economic actor in today's highly integrated world. Not only do they play their traditional role of growth poles in their countries but they function as essential nodes of the global economy.2. Policy makers, international organisations and research networks are increasingly called to compare the economic and social performances of Metropolitan Regions across countries. Examples of this work undertaken in international organisation and networks include the UN-Habitat, the EU Urban Audit, ESPON and the OECD Competitive Cities.3. The scope of what we can learn from these international comparisons, however, is limited by the lack of a comparable definition of Metropolitan Regions. Although most countries have their own definitions, these vary significantly from one country to another. Furthermore, in search for higher cross-country comparability, international initiatives have - somehow paradoxically - generated an even larger number of definitions.4. In principle, there is no clear reason to prefer one definition to another. As each definition has been elaborated for a specific analytical purpose, it captures some features of a Metropolitan Region while it tends to overlook others. The issue, rather, is that we do not know the pros and the cons of different definitions nor, most important, the analytical implications of using one definition rather than another. 5. In order to respond to these questions, the OECD hosted an international workshop on 'Defining and Measuring Metropolitan Regions'. The workshop brought together major international organisations (the UN, Eurostat, the World Bank, and the OECD), National Statistical Offices and researchers from this field. The aim of the workshop was to develop some 'guiding principles', which could be agreed upon among the participants and would eventually provide the basis for some form of 'International Guidance' for comparing Metropolitan Regions across countries.

This working paper was presented at this workshop. It provides the conceptual and methodological basis for the definition of metropolitan areas in Canada and provides a detailed comparison of Canada's methodology to that of the USA. The intent was to encourage discussion regarding Canada's approach to defining metropolitan areas in the effort to identify the 'guiding principles'. It is being made available as a working paper to continue this discussion and to provide background to the user community to encourage dialogue and commentary from the user community regarding Canada's metropolitan area methodology.

Description:

An urban area has a minimum population concentration of 1,000 persons and a population density of at least 400 persons per square kilometre, based on the current census population count. All territory outside urban areas is classified as rural. Taken together, urban and rural areas cover all of Canada. For the 2001 Census, there were 913 urban areas. In 2006, the number of urban areas decreased to 895.

Following the release of urban areas for the 2001 Census, in-depth analysis revealed that the land area of many urban areas had increased substantially and the boundaries of these urban areas were considered to be over-bounded. In response, the boundaries of nearly half of the 2001 urban areas were updated to rectify this over-bounding, either manually or automatically. This paper describes the post-censal update process of 2001 urban areas and addresses the impact on the 2001 modified population counts adjusted to 2006 urban area boundaries.

The paper also briefly describes and compares the delineation criteria for urban areas from the 1996 and 2001 Censuses.

Description:

Statistics Canada creates files that provide the link between postal codes and the geographic areas by which it disseminates statistical data. By linking postal codes to the Statistics Canada geographic areas, Statistics Canada facilitates the extraction and subsequent aggregation of data for selected geographic areas from files available to users. Users can then take data from Statistics Canada for their areas and tabulate this with other data for these same areas to create a combined statistical profile for these areas.

An issue has been the methodology used by Statistics Canada to establish the linkage of postal codes to geographic areas. In order to address this issue, Statistics Canada decided to create a conceptual framework on which to base the rules for linking postal codes and Statistics Canada's geographic areas. This working paper presents the conceptual framework and the geocoding rules. The methodology described in this paper will be the basis for linking postal codes to the 2006 Census geographic areas. This paper is presented for feedback from users of Statistics Canada's postal codes related products.

Description:

This study examines the geographic distribution of livestock and poultry in May 2001, at the time of the 2001 Census of Agriculture. It compares it with the situation on Census Day 1991 to determine how concentrations have changed during the 1990s.

Description:

With each census, Statistics Canada improves its methods of dissemination to the public by seeking ways of publishing census results in a timely and accessible manner, while maintaining high data quality standards.

This consultation guide has been developed to assist you in providing feedback on 2006 Census products and services and in contributing ideas and suggestions to the 2011 Census dissemination strategy.

Description:

This guide describes the content and applications of the product, as well as providing information on data quality, record layouts, and methodology.

Description:

The Urban Area Boundary Files portray the urban area boundaries for which 2006 Census data are disseminated. An urban area has a minimum population concentration of 1,000 persons and a population density of at least 400 persons per square kilometre, based on the current census population count. The files contain the boundaries of all 895 urban areas defined for the 2006 Census.

There are two types of boundary files: digital and cartographic. Digital files depict the full extent of the geographical areas, including the coastal water area. Cartographic files depict the geographical areas using only the major land mass of Canada and its coastal islands. The files provide a framework for mapping and spatial analysis using commercially available geographic information systems (GIS) or other mapping software. They are positionally consistent with the 2006 Road Network File, which can provide additional geographic context for mapping applications.

The Urban Area Boundary Files are in latitude/longitude coordinates and are based on the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83). A reference guide is available (92-160-GWE).

Description:

The National, Census Divisions and Census Subdivisions Reference Maps reference guide is available for the following products: Census Division and Census Subdivision Reference Maps, by Province or Territory, 2006 Census and four national maps. The national maps of Canada at a 1:7,500,000 scale showing census divisions, point locations of census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations, statistical area classification and economic regions and census divisions. The Reference Guide describes the content and applications of these products, as well as data quality, and other information.

Description:

This report describes the comments received as a result of the second round of the 2006 Census consultations. As with the previous 2006 Census consultation, this second round of consultations integrated discussions on the dissemination program, questionnaire content and census geography. However, the focus of this second round of consultations was placed on the 2001 Census of Population dissemination program and proposed directions for 2006 geography. Consultations were held from January to June 2004. Approximately 1,000 comments were captured through written submissions and the organization of over 40 meetings across Canada.

This report describes users' feedback on dissemination and geography issues received through this second round of consultations. In addition to user's comments, web metrics information serves as a valuable tool when evaluating the accessibility of public good data tables. Therefore, page view counts have been integrated in this report.

Some general planning assumptions that focus on the production and dissemination of 2006 Census products are also included in this report.

Description:

This activity helps students understand the language and terminology related to the census. It forms the basis for students' learning throughout the rest of the Canadian Agriculture at a Glance activities.

Description:

This activity focusses on the term 'ecumene' and how it is used to define terminology related to mapping.

Description:

This activity looks at the competing interests and potential for conflict between very large livestock farms and their rural neighbours.

Description:

This Cartographic Boundary File for Canada contains the boundaries of all 82 census agricultural regions delineated for the 2001 Census of Agriculture together with the shoreline around Canada and the larger inland lakes, all integrated in a single layer. The boundary file coordinates are latitude/longitude and are based on the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83). The file is available in both ARC/INFO Interchange and MapInfo Interchange formats and a reference guide is also provided.

Cartographic Boundary Files can be used with Census of Population, Census of Agriculture or other Statistics Canada data for data analysis and thematic mapping (with appropriate software). Geographic codes provide the linkage between the statistical data and the geographic area boundaries. Cartographic Boundary Files can also be used to create new geographic areas by aggregating standard geographic areas, and for other data manipulations available with the user's software. The Cartographic Boundary Files are positionally consistent with the Road Network Files and Skeletal Road Network Files, which can provide additional geographic context for mapping applications.

Description:

This paper compares six definitions of the word 'rural' from databases at Statistics Canada. Each definition emphasizes different criteria (population size, density, context) and has different associated thresholds. The size of the territorial units (building blocks) from which each definition is constructed also varies.