Canadian Megatrends, April 2015
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Released: 2015-04-20
Canada goes urban
What a difference 150 years makes.
This month's issue of Canadian Megatrends examines the country's population movements over time, from a largely rural setting a century and a half ago to a highly urbanized society today.
Despite its seemingly endless prairies and vast boreal forests, Canada feels a little more crowded than it used to. In 1861, half a dozen years before Confederation, 2.7 million people (or more than 84% of all inhabitants) called a rural area home. By 2011, fewer than one in five people lived in a rural area.
Urbanization, however, has not been uniform across Canada. While 14% of the population in both British Columbia and Ontario resided in rural areas in 2011, more than half of Prince Edward Island residents lived in a rural setting. Still, change is ongoing: in every province and territory, the share of the population living in a rural area declined from 2006 to 2011.
What also makes the rural areas unique, though, is the age composition of the population, namely the small proportion of young adults who live there. In 2011, 17% of people living in rural areas were aged 15 to 29, lower than the national average of 20%.
The article "Canada goes urban ," part of Canadian Megatrends (Catalogue number11-630-X), is now available from The Daily module of our website.
Contact information
For more information, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca).
To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Laurent Martel (613-220-4094; laurent.martel@statcan.gc.ca), Demography Division.
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