Health Regions: Boundaries and Correspondence with Census Geography
Health region boundary files
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The health region boundaries provided in this product are based on 2021 Census geographic units. The smallest geographic unit available has been used as the building block to define health regions. In general, the legislated boundaries respect these units, but they do not always respect 2021 dissemination areas (DA) or 2021 dissemination blocks (DB) once the legislated boundaries are digitized. In all provinces except British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario (HCCSSs), the dissemination area was used to define health regions. However, in several instances, the actual legislated boundaries split DAs. In the Prairie provinces and B.C. the dissemination block (DB) was used to improve the accuracy of these boundaries. Even with this, the health region boundaries do not always reflect the legislated boundaries recognized by the provinces thus creating many instances of split dissemination blocks.
The limits that did not respect STC geometry (the splits) were digitized by utilizing maps, spatial layers and/or descriptions supplied by and with the cooperation of the authority for each province.
Method used to create health region 2022 boundary files
All processes and procedures to update the boundary files were carried out using ESRI Inc. ® ArcGIS Pro 2.8.2, Safe Software Inc. FME ® Desktop 2019.1, SAS Institute SAS ® 9.4, and Microsoft ® Excel ® for Microsoft 365 MSO Version 2202.
Boundary file formats
All health region boundaries in this publication are available in the ESRI ® shapefile format.
The ESRI ® shapefile is supplied in a zip file. This file expands to provide six files of different extensions which are: (CPG, DBF, PRJ, SHP, SHX, and XML).
Boundary files are provided as a national boundary file and are provided as individual provincial boundary files.
Projection information
The disseminated projection coordinate system of the health region boundary files is as follows:
- Lambert Conformal Conic
- Datum = NAD83
- Units = meters
- Spheroid = GRS 1980
- Parameters:
- 1st standard parallel: 49° 00' 00"
- 2nd standard parallel: 77° 00' 00''
- Central Meridian: -91° 52' 00''
- Latitude of Projection Origin: 63° 23' 26.43''
- False Easting: 6200000
- False Northing: 3000000
Digital boundary files
ArcGIS
- Canada
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Prince Edward Island
- Nova Scotia
- New Brunswick
- Quebec
- Ontario
- Manitoba
- Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Yukon
- Northwest Territories
- Nunavut
ArcGIS Comprehensive Digital boundary files
Geodatabase
- Canada
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Prince Edward Island
- Nova Scotia
- New Brunswick
- Quebec
- Ontario
- Manitoba
- Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Yukon
- Northwest Territories
- Nunavut
Geodatabase Comprehensive Digital boundary files
Geography Markup language
- Canada
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Prince Edward Island
- Nova Scotia
- New Brunswick
- Quebec
- Ontario
- Manitoba
- Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Yukon
- Northwest Territories
- Nunavut
Geography Markup language Comprehensive boundary files
Cartographic boundary files
ArcGIS
- Canada
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Prince Edward Island
- Nova Scotia
- New Brunswick
- Quebec
- Ontario
- Manitoba
- Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Yukon
- Northwest Territories
- Nunavut
ArcGIS Comprehensive Cartographic boundary files
Geodatabase
- Canada
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Prince Edward Island
- Nova Scotia
- New Brunswick
- Quebec
- Ontario
- Manitoba
- Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Yukon
- Northwest Territories
- Nunavut
Geodatabase Comprehensive Cartographic boundary files
Geography Markup language
- Canada
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Prince Edward Island
- Nova Scotia
- New Brunswick
- Quebec
- Ontario
- Manitoba
- Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Yukon
- Northwest Territories
- Nunavut
Geography Markup language Comprehensive Cartographic boundary files
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