2021 Canadian census in the context of "Cambridge Bay"

Nova Scotia is a province in The Maritimes region of Canada, located on the nation's east coast. With an estimated population of over 1 million as of 2025, Nova Scotia is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. Nova Scotia is also the second-most densely populated province in Canada, and the second smallest province by area. The province comprises the Nova Scotia peninsula and Cape Breton Island, as well as 3,800 other coastal islands. The province is connected to the rest of Canada by the Isthmus of Chignecto, on which the province's sole land border, with New Brunswick, is located.

Nova Scotia's capital and largest city is Halifax, which is home to over 45% of the province's population as of the 2021 census. Halifax is the twelfth-largest census metropolitan area in Canada, the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada, and Canada's second-largest coastal municipality after Vancouver.

Ontario is the southernmost province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it is home to 38.5% of the country's population, and is the second-largest province by total area (after Quebec). Ontario is Canada's fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area of all the Canadian provinces and territories. It is home to the nation's capital, Ottawa, and its most populous city, Toronto, which is Ontario's provincial capital.

Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east and northeast. To the south, it is bordered by the U.S. states of (from west to east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania (through Lake Erie), and New York. Almost all of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,700 mi) border with the United States follows rivers and lakes: from the westerly Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. There is only about 1 km (5⁄8 mi) of actual land border, made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.

Census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and census agglomerations (CAs) are geographic units defined by Statistics Canada to encompass an urban core and environs. This list is arranged by population, using data from the 2021 and 2016 Canadian censuses.

A city's metropolitan area in colloquial or administrative terms may be different from its CMA as defined by Statistics Canada, resulting in differing populations. Such is the case with the Greater Toronto Area, where its metro population is notably higher than its CMA population due to its inclusion of the neighbouring Oshawa CMA to the east and the Burlington portion of the neighbouring Hamilton CMA to the west.

Montreal (French: Montréal) is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest in Canada, and the eighth-largest in North America. Founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it now takes its name from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked mountain around which the early settlement was built. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal and a few, much smaller, peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It lies 196 km (122 mi) east of the national capital, Ottawa, and 258 km (160 mi) southwest of the provincial capital, Quebec City.

As of the 2021 Canadian census the city had a population of 1,762,949, and a metropolitan population of 4,291,732, making it the second-largest metropolitan area in Canada. French is the city's official language. In 2021, 85.7% of the population of the city of Montreal considered themselves fluent in French while 90.2% could speak it in the metropolitan area. Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada, with 58.5% of the population able to speak both French and English. Montreal is the largest primarily French speaking city in the Americas.

Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The Metro Vancouver area had a population of 2.6 million in 2021, making it the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada. Greater Vancouver, along with the Fraser Valley, comprises the Lower Mainland with a regional population of over 3 million. Vancouver has the highest population density in Canada, with over 5,700 inhabitants per square kilometre (15,000/sq mi), and the fourth highest in North America (after New York City, San Francisco, and Mexico City).

Vancouver is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in Canada: 49.3 percent of its residents are not native English speakers, 47.8 percent are native speakers of neither English nor French, and 54.5 percent of residents belong to visible minority groups. It has been consistently ranked one of the most liveable cities in Canada and in the world. In terms of housing affordability, Vancouver is also one of the most expensive cities in Canada and in the world. Vancouverism is the city's urban planning design philosophy.

Yukon (Canadian French: [jukõ]) is a territory of Canada, bordering British Columbia to the south, the Northwest Territories to the east, the Beaufort Sea to the north, and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west. It is Canada's westernmost and smallest territory by land area. As of the 2021 census, Yukon is the middle of the three territories in terms of population, but the most densely populated. As of the 2025 third quarter estimates Yukon had a population of 48,278, which would make it the most populated territory. Whitehorse, the territorial capital, is the largest settlement.

Yukon was split from the Northwest Territories by a federal statute in 1898 as the Yukon Territory. The current governing legislation is the Yukon Act passed by the federal Parliament in 2002. That act established Yukon as the territory's official name, although Yukon Territory remains in popular usage. Canada Post uses the territory's internationally approved postal abbreviation of YT. In 2021, territorial government policy was changed so that The Yukon is recommended for use in official territorial government materials.

Statistics Canada conducts a country-wide census that collects demographic data every five years on the first and sixth year of each decade. The 2021 Canadian census enumerated a total population of 36,991,981, an increase of around 5.2 percent over the 2016 figure. It is estimated that Canada's population surpassed 40 million in 2023 and 41 million in 2024. Between 1990 and 2008, the population increased by 5.6 million, equivalent to 20.4 percent overall growth. The main driver of population growth is immigration, with 6.2% of the country's population being made up of temporary residents as of 2023, or about 2.5 million people. Between 2011 and May 2016, Canada's population grew by 1.7 million people, with immigrants accounting for two-thirds of the increase.

Canada has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates in the world, driven mainly by economic policy and, to a lesser extent, family reunification. In 2021, a total of 405,330 immigrants were admitted to Canada. New immigrants to Canada settle mostly in major urban areas such as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Canada also accepts large numbers of refugees, accounting for over 10 percent of annual global refugee resettlements.

British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, forests, lakes, mountains, inland deserts and grassy plains. British Columbia borders the province of Alberta to the east; the territories of Yukon and Northwest Territories to the north; the US states of Washington, Idaho and Montana to the south, and Alaska to the northwest. With an estimated population of over 5.7 million as of 2025, it is Canada's third-most populous province. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, while the province's largest city is Vancouver. Vancouver and its suburbs together make up the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, with the 2021 census recording 2.6 million people in Metro Vancouver. British Columbia is Canada's third-largest province in terms of total area, after Quebec and Ontario.

The first known human inhabitants of the area settled in British Columbia at least 10,000 years ago. Such groups include the Coast Salish, Tsilhqotʼin, and Haida peoples, among many others. One of the earliest British settlements in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, which gave rise to the city of Victoria, the capital of the Colony of Vancouver Island. The Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) was subsequently founded by Richard Clement Moody, and by the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Moody selected the site for and founded the mainland colony's capital New Westminster. The colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia were incorporated in 1866, subsequent to which Victoria became the united colony's capital. In 1871, British Columbia entered Confederation as the sixth province of Canada, in enactment of the British Columbia Terms of Union.

Canada is divided into 10 provinces and three territories. The majority of Canada's population is concentrated in the areas close to the Canada–US border. Its four largest provinces by area (Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta) are also its most populous; together they account for 86.5 percent of the country's population. The territories (the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon) account for over a third of Canada's area but are home to only 0.32 percent of its population, which skews the national population density value.

Canada's population grew by 5.24 percent between the 2016 and 2021 censuses. With the exceptions of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Northwest Territories, all territories and provinces increased in population from 2016 to 2021. In terms of percent change, the fastest-growing province or territory was Yukon with an increase of 12.1 percent between 2016 and 2021, followed by Prince Edward Island with 7.99 percent growth.