Geographic code tutorial, part 1

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Most standard geographic areas are commonly known by their names, but these names are not always unique. Geographic codes are numbers that represent a level of geography. When codes that represent lower levels of geography are used in combination with codes that represent higher levels of geography, they provide a way to uniquely identify each geographic unit in Canada.

For example, the name 'Windsor' identifies three different census subdivisions (municipalities) in Canada. To uniquely identify each of these Windsor CSDs in Canada, the two-digit province/territory (PR) code and the two-digit census division (CD) code must precede the three-digit census subdivision (CSD) code:

Table - Examples of geographic codes for the Windor census subdivisions
PR-CD-CSD code Province (PR) name Census division (CD) name Census subdivision (CSD) name
12 08 002 Nova Scotia Hants Windsor
24 42 088 Quebec Le Val-Saint-François Windsor
35 37 039 Ontario Essex Windsor
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