Illustrated Glossary
Core, fringe and rural area

Definition

The terms “core”, “fringe” and “rural area” distinguish between population centres (POPCTR) and rural areas (RA) within a census metropolitan area (CMA) or census agglomeration (CA).

A CMA or CA can have two types of cores: the core and the secondary core. The core is the population centre (POPCTR) with the highest population, around which a CMA or CA is delineated. The boundaries and population counts of the population centres (core) used to delineate the CMAs or CAs are taken from the current census. The core must have a population of at least 50,000 persons in the case of a CMA or at least 10,000 persons in the case of a CA.

The secondary core is a population centre with at least 10,000 persons (based on the current census) and that is within a CMA or CA but outside the main municipality (census subdivision) that contains the core. The secondary core can also be the core of a CA that has been merged with an adjacent CMA.

The term “fringe” is applied to all population centres (POPCTRs) within a CMA or CA that have less than 10,000 persons (based on the current census) and are not contiguous to a core or a secondary core. In some circumstances, POPCTRs that have 10,000 or more persons (based on the previous census) are designated “fringe”. These are POPCTRs that exist inside census subdivisions (CSDs) that are already contiguous with a core or a secondary core. All territory within a CMA or CA that is not classified as a core or fringe is classified as a “rural area”.