Effective February 3, 2011, the term 'population centre' has replaced the term 'urban area'. Population centres are classified into one of three groups based on the size of their population. For more information, see the note entitled From urban areas to population centres.
Three attributes have been added to the 2011 Census Geographic Attribute File:
CMAuid: Uniquely identifies a census metropolitan area or census agglomeration.
POPCTRRAuid: Population centre and rural area unique identifier. Uniquely identifies a population centre and rural area.
POPCTRRAclass: Population centre and rural area class. Distinguishes between small population centres, medium population centres, large urban population centres and rural areas.
For the 2011 Census, boundaries of designated places (DPLs) may cross census subdivision (CSD) boundaries.
The 2011 Census Geographic Attribute File is available for free download from the Statistics Canada website (www.statcan.gc.ca).
The 2011 Census Geographic Attribute File is now available in Excel format (.xlsx), in addition to ASCII format (.txt).
