Maps That Explain Canada

Perhaps it goes without saying that Canada is associated with the north. After all, we do proudly refer to ourselves as 'The Great White North' and we founded the northernmost continuously inhabited settlement in the world in Alert, Nunavut (even if Alert is a weather/Canadian Forces station without a civilian population). Despite this, it is a well known fact that Canadians tend to huddle up close to the U.S.-Canada border, although this is moreso to do with the quality of land up north + lack of reasons to settle there rather than temperature.

Statistics Canada has drawn a line dividing 'Northern Canada' from 'Southern Canada' based on social factors and development rather than politics, and I find this division interesting. As you can see, Northern Canada is said to comprise the three territories + the so-called 'northern' sections of each Canadian province bar the Maritimes. The way it is drawn, you can see roughly how Canada is divided from east to west as well.

Compared to Southern Canada, the north is more sparsely populated, has a higher percentage of Indigenous people living there, is a younger population on average, is poorer, has a higher crime rate and more health problems. A distinction should also be made between the near-north and the far-north, as bigger cities including Sudbury, Saguenay or Grande Prairie cannot compare to the remote nature of the Canadian Territories.

Fellow Canadians, what do you think of the North/South line drawn by Statistics Canada? Do you believe it is drawn in the right place? Where would you say that Northern Canada begins? I would be interested to hear more perspectives!

This may surprise you. From 2016 to 2020, Whitehorse, YT grew by 18.62%! Meanwhile, Cold Lake, AB's population fell 3.77%, the largest increases/decreases respectively.

Almost all census metropolitan areas (CMA's) in Canada are predicted to have grown from 2016 to 2020. Keep in mind that no cities with a population of less than 10,000 were included, and these tend to be the cities which see the largest decreases. As you may expect, smaller centres tend to see the largest fluctuations in their percentages, although there were a few surprises with larger cities Saskatoon and Kelowna seeing big boosts to their populations!

There are a few trends we can observe here. Cities with the largest increases are often located close to larger cities (such as Squamish near Vancouver or Carleton Place near Ottawa) or popular retirement locations such as Kelowna which continue to house more and more of Canada's ageing population. Whitehorse and Yellowknife are younger, working cities and this may explain their growth. I was only a little surprised to see so many Prairie cities and Quebecois cities having these decreases, although I am aware that they may be losing a lot of their young people to bigger urban centres. Only nine CMA's saw a decrease in population, none with a population greater than 30,000

I chose to use CMA's for my measurement due to the fact that they contain a large area surrounding each city, and so in order to see a decrease people either have to move completely away from the city or, well, expire. The numbers aren't changing because people are moving to the suburbs.

This one took a while to make! In fact, I have been tempted to make a blog on this topic before until it started feeling too formulaic.

Etymologies tell us a lot about history and settlement patterns across Canada, with room for some anomalies. English and French are largely dominant for obvious reasons, although you may be surprised at how much these language's names spread themselves across the country. French-Canadians have a long history in Western Canada, even if French is rarely heard in much of the region today (this gives us names such as 'Beaumont' and 'Dauphin'). I was surprised by some of the English names in Quebec, including Victoriaville (named for Queen Victoria) and Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, yet this makes sense given the length of time in which what is now Quebec was a British colony.

Of course, Indigenous languages give their words to many modern Canadian placenames. After all, there are only so many times you can name places after Saints, important British people/royalty or vague geographic resemblences before you get a wee bit bored. Many Canadian cities are named after the original Indigenous name for the locale, with these languages spanning various language families (I have only grouped them together for political purposes). In light-green are cities which have been translated from Indigenous-language words to English/French (such as Red Deer, Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw). Deep-green reflects the cities which take their name directly from an Indigenous language and are merely transliterated (often poorly). Examples include Toronto, Winnipeg or Iqaluit.

Now for some interesting cases. German Canadians settled across Southern Ontario and the Prairie, and have given name to many settlements in these areas. Many of these Germans were/are Mennonites who migrated from the Russian Empire/USSR. Kitchener, Ontario was once named Berlin, although this was changed during WWI due to anti-German sentiment (along with many other German-language placenames.

Spanish placenames in Canada are few and far between, however there is an interesting pattern which cannot be fully seen on the map. In and around the yellow dot on Vancouver Island (Port Alberni), there are several Spanish language names, including Tofino and Zeballos. This is because the Spaniards under Valdés' command were among the first Europeans to chart this area, along with the British under George Vancouver.

Speaking of George Vancouver, the man who gave his name to both Vancouver and Vancouver Island, did you know that his surname is Dutch? Vancouver was English, although his father was Dutch and 'Vancouver' is an anglicism of 'van Coevorden'

To explain the rest, many of the Celtic names have the same pattern as the English names -- they are borrowed from British (or Irish) placenames which happen to be of Celtic origin. Canada has a large Scottish history in regions, and this contributes to a large number of Gaelic names. Latin names are infrequent. Regina refers to Queen Victoria, and Sarnia is Latin for Guernsey of the Channel Islands. The lonely grey city comes from Crimean Tatar, as Alma, Quebec is named for the Napoleonic Battle of Alma on the river Alma.

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador has an uncertain language origin. Although I claim on the map above that it comes from English, it may be a translation from Spanish or Basque. We don't quite know the answer.

A while back I saw a post online about the 'nine ways to divide Canada'. I don't know if anyone is familiar with this format, but you take a country/region's map and make jokes or stereotypes about different places. Anyway, one of these maps got me thinking, in which the author had one of the divisions being "largest city is basically the only inhabitable settlement".

The provinces/territories represented by the map were Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador--places I'm sure many Canadians will view as being somewhat remote, where the secondary cities/towns are obscure.

However, the true story is different somewhat different. Yukon and Manitoba are dominated by Whitehorse and Winnipeg, respectively. Northwest Territories and Newfoundland and Labrador have slightly more dispersed populations, on the other hand, while only 20% of Nunavummiut (Nunavut residents) live in Iqaluit! It may come as a surprise then, that some of the larger provinces are dominated by a single city--British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. Keep in mind that I calculated the percentages using population-centre/urban area data, so suburbs like Burnaby and Mississauga were absorbed into Vancouver and Toronto.

Yukon is particular is mind-blowingly empty. 69.9% of the population lives within Whitehorse's city limits (which are larger than its urban area) and outside of Whitehorse, there are seven other municipalities which house another 11% of the population in an area larger than Sweden.

But are there any 'two-city' provinces? I did up a quick map to find out, although it was mostly unremarkable and did more to highlight the flaws in the proportional way I showed population percentage than anything else (the circles decrease proportionately based on their radius, not area). However, Alberta jumped to first place with 66% of Albertan living in either Calgary or Edmonton! Saskatchewan also jumped to 42% while other provinces saw much smaller gains overall.

Speaking of crazy population distributions, check out this map of British Columbia! As you can see, a huge majority lives in the Fraser Valley and the South of Vancouver Island, regions famed for having nice weather, good farmland and the allure of the big city.

Outside of this region, the largest population can be found around the Okanagan Valley in the B.C. Interior. As a frequent visitor to the B.C. Interior, particularly the Kootenays, I find it quite interesting that the British Columbia I'm familiar with is quite different to the British Columbia that a large majority of B.C. residents are familiar with themselves.

Unlike in the United States, where presidents must be born in the country to be eligible for the position, any Canadian may become prime minister regardless of their nation of origin. John Turner was the most recent prime minister to be born in Britain, although he was only prime minister for three months and never sat in parliament.

You can see a major west-east divide on the map. Canada's west-east divide is one of the stronger demographic features of the nation, and is one I predict will only grow over time. Only two prime ministers were born in Western Canada, Joe Clark and Kim Campbell--neither one lasted a year in office.

While the divide looks big on the map, you must consider that a large number of these politicians were born in a time before Western Canada was settled by Europeans. Also, a large number of prime ministers have sat in federal districts across Western Canada, with Stephen Harper a recent example. Interestingly, Justin Trudeau is the first prime minister who was born in Ottawa (he was born during his father's time in office). Ultimately the map should be taken as an interesting piece of trivia.

Red are the Liberal Party (left-of-centre) and Blue are a Conservative Party (right-of-centre). Keep in mind that the current Conservative Party only replaced the Progressive Conservative party in 2003, all previous Conservative parties are under the same umbrella on the map.

Canada's South Asian community is one of Canada's quickest growing. In 2036, it is estimated that 13% of Canadians will be or South Asian or Middle Eastern origin.

But where are South Asian Canadians living? On one end of the country, Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area is 44.3% South Asian (the highest % in the country). Meanwhile in Metro Vancouver, Surrey has the second largest South Asian population, followed by neighbouring Abbotsford.

Canada's largest, most cosmopolitan cities will continue to host not just large South Asian communities, but large immigrant communities in general from a wide range of countries. I could not the same level of comprehensive results for Chinese Canadians, although a quick Google search shows the same patterns are mirrored in Richmond, BC and Markham, ON.

Also, I find the decently large South Asian population in Thompson, Manitoba interesting. It's such a far away destination from other settlements and not somewhere many Canadians are dying to move to.

The map style is the same this time, although the size of the circles is based off of the number of Indigenous people who live there, while the colour of the circles is percentage based. Also, since we are talking about population rather than percentage, it skews towards larger cities. There are plenty of towns and settlements where First Nations, Métis or Inuit people make up the majority.

Despite the limited scope of the map, you can still see how the Indigenous population is more concentrated in the 'north' as defined by the earlier map + the Prairie Provinces. Manitoba has the highest percentage of Indigenous Canadians of any province, at 10.5% First Nations, 7.2% Métis (mixed European and First Nations heritage) and 0.3% other Indigenous.

I'm not a huge fan of how this one turned out, but here is a ranking of the top 49 universities in Canada, as ranked by Macleans(Canada-only) reputation.

Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island each have one university in total. Last year, Yukon finally got their own university (which graduated from being a college)--the first based in any of the Canadian Territories. I realise that none of this is apparent from a map which shows just 49 universities but I still thought I'd mention that. Also, the circles get larger the more prestigious the university is.