Interim List of Changes to Municipal Boundaries, Status, and Names
Up to January 1st, 2025
Text begins
The Interim List of Changes to Municipal Boundaries, Status and Names provides a summary of the changes to census subdivisions such as municipal boundary or name changes that were processed since the production of the previous interim list and have an effective date on or before January 1, 2025. This report presents the changes which have been processed by Statistics Canada based on the information received and, therefore, may not include all the changes that may have occurred in this time period.
About this product
Preface
Census subdivision (CSD) is the general term for municipalities (as determined by provincial/territorial legislation) or areas treated as municipal equivalents for statistical purposes, such as Indian reserves, Indian settlements and unorganized territories. Municipal status is defined by laws in effect in each province and territory in Canada.
CSDs are an important component of the geographic structure used at Statistics Canada for collecting and disseminating data. Statistics Canada monitors and updates changes to the boundaries, names and other relevant information related to CSD. These changes are published in this Interim List of Changes to Municipal Boundaries, Status and Names to advise users doing trend or longitudinal analysis that the areas being compared have changed over time.
Content considerations
The summary data in this product reflect municipal changes in effect that were processed since the production of the previous version and have an effective date on or before January 1, 2025. Notifications of the changes that took place during this period were obtained from provincial gazettes and statutes, orders of the Municipal Board and special provincial acts.
Boundary changes are compiled from legal descriptions and accompanying maps into Statistics Canada’s National Geographic Database (NGD) using the best available information. Census Subdivision Boundary Files are published for public use. Any corrections or additional changes to those published boundaries reported back to Statistics Canada are represented in the subsequent issue of the interim list.
An important reference for users of the Interim List of Changes to Municipal Boundaries, Status and Names is the Standard Geographical Classification manual. It is composed of:
Geographic changes
After a census, Statistics Canada makes public the total number of persons and the total number of dwellings counted in a given area, for example, in a municipality. By the next census, the municipality's geographic boundaries may have changed, especially if it has annexed part of another municipality or has merged with another municipality. When a boundary change occurs between censuses, the population and dwelling counts for the geographic areas affected by the boundary change are adjusted. Once the dwellings affected by the boundary change are identified, it is possible to establish the population affected. These counts are then added to the geographic area that has increased in size and subtracted from the geographic area that has decreased in size.
Tables
Table 1, “Changes to census subdivisions by province and territory”, presents all changes received to date, with 2021 population adjusted to modified CSD limits, where applicable. The table is available for viewing or download (CSV) for all of Canada.
In Table 1, the information is presented using the assumption that a CSD may be gaining or losing information, be it area, population, a combination of both area and population, as well as codes, names, types and private dwelling counts.
Note: A gaining CSD may have more than one entry in the table if more than one losing CSD is associated with the same transaction. Records can be grouped by transaction using the File Number field.
The record layout of Table 1 is presented in Table 2.
Table 3, “Number of census subdivision changes by type of change,” presents the number of CSD changes according to the type of change.
The type of change is represented by a change code. The different change codes are presented in Table 4.
Notes
Some CSD boundaries that have been adjusted to the Quarter-Section-Township-Range-Meridian in the provinces west of Ontario may not be represented in this interim list.
The adjustment of the boundary between the Northwest Territories and Nunavut does not appear in this interim list.
No changes to CSDs were processed during the time period covered by this interim list for the following territory: Nunavut.
The counts of total private dwellings and private dwellings occupied by usual residents continue to be shown in Table 1.
Appendices
See definitions of the geography universe from the Dictionary, Census of Population, 2021.
- Date modified: