Canada Census Divisions

A Canadian census division is the tier between the province and the town: the county in the Maritimes and Ontario, the regional district in British Columbia, the municipalité régionale de comté in Quebec, the numbered division on the Prairies. It is the one nationwide tier that Statistics Canada draws, which is why it is the list a weather alert, a tender notice or a census table names. Learn the provinces and territories first, then this map for when a round puts you somewhere the province alone does not settle.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: Province or territory, from Newfoundland and Labrador to Nunavut
In the game: 293 census divisions

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What you are looking at

A census division is a statistical area, but not an invented one: in most of the country it is a unit the province already runs. Ontario and the Maritimes use their counties, which is where Kings, Queens and Victoria come from. British Columbia uses its regional districts and Quebec its regional county municipalities, so the names there run long: Minganie–Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent is the longest on the map. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador have no names for theirs and number them, so Division No. 1 appears four times and each one carries its province in brackets. Kings, Queens, Victoria, York and Northumberland are told apart the same way.

The sizes could not be further apart. Toronto and Montréal are single divisions the size of a city, packed beside Peel, Laval and the rest of the Golden Horseshoe and the St. Lawrence plain, while Qikiqtaaluk, the Baffin Island division of Nunavut, is larger than most of the provinces. Most of the map is a few big shapes in the north and a crowd in the south. The smallest divisions are given a tap area wider than their shape; zoom in for the rest.

Islets under about thirty square kilometres are left off the map, so the Arctic coast is smoother than the real one. A division keeps every island above that size.

The groups are the thirteen provinces and territories, so the game lets you drill them one at a time. A new device opens on Nova Scotia, the eighteen counties of the peninsula, rather than all 293. Each province answers under the same name in Canada Provinces.

How to place one

Pick one province and learn it. Prince Edward Island has three and Quebec has ninety-eight, so the first round sets the pace.
Learn the numbered ones as a block. The Prairie divisions run in strips across their province, so place the province first and the number second.
Read the shared names by their province. If a name has a bracket, the province is the clue: place the province, then look inside it.
In Quebec and Ontario, follow the water. The St. Lawrence and the Ottawa River thread a chain of divisions from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.

Every census division, by province

Nova Scotia18 census divisions: Shelburne, Yarmouth, Digby, Queens (Nova Scotia), Annapolis, Lunenburg, Kings (Nova Scotia), Hants, Halifax, Colchester, Cumberland, Pictou, Guysborough, Antigonish, Inverness, Richmond, Cape Breton, Victoria (Nova Scotia)
British Columbia29 census divisions: East Kootenay, Central Kootenay, Kootenay Boundary, Okanagan-Similkameen, Fraser Valley, Greater Vancouver, Capital, Cowichan Valley, Nanaimo, Alberni-Clayoquot, Strathcona, Comox Valley, Powell River, Sunshine Coast, Squamish-Lillooet, Thompson-Nicola, Central Okanagan, North Okanagan, Columbia-Shuswap, Cariboo, Mount Waddington, Central Coast, Skeena-Queen Charlotte, Kitimat-Stikine, Bulkley-Nechako, Fraser-Fort George, Peace River, Stikine, Northern Rockies
Quebec98 census divisions: Communauté maritime des Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Le Rocher-Percé, La Côte-de-Gaspé, La Haute-Gaspésie, Bonaventure, Avignon, La Matapédia, La Matanie, La Mitis, Rimouski-Neigette, Les Basques, Rivière-du-Loup, Témiscouata, Kamouraska, Charlevoix-Est, Charlevoix, L'Islet, Montmagny, Bellechasse, L'Île-d'Orléans, La Côte-de-Beaupré, La Jacques-Cartier, Québec, Lévis, La Nouvelle-Beauce, Robert-Cliche, Les Etchemins, Beauce-Sartigan, Le Granit, Les Appalaches, L'Érable, Lotbinière, Portneuf, Mékinac, Shawinigan, Francheville, Bécancour, Arthabaska, Les Sources, Le Haut-Saint-François, Le Val-Saint-François, Sherbrooke, Coaticook, Memphrémagog, Brome-Missisquoi, La Haute-Yamaska, Acton, Drummond, Nicolet-Yamaska, Maskinongé, D'Autray, Pierre-De Saurel, Les Maskoutains, Rouville, Le Haut-Richelieu, La Vallée-du-Richelieu, Longueuil, Marguerite-D'Youville, L'Assomption, Joliette, Matawinie, Montcalm, Les Moulins, Laval, Montréal, Roussillon, Les Jardins-de-Napierville, Le Haut-Saint-Laurent, Beauharnois-Salaberry, Vaudreuil-Soulanges, Deux-Montagnes, Thérèse-De Blainville, Mirabel, La Rivière-du-Nord, Argenteuil, Les Pays-d'en-Haut, Les Laurentides, Antoine-Labelle, Papineau, Gatineau, Les Collines-de-l'Outaouais, La Vallée-de-la-Gatineau, Pontiac, Témiscamingue, Rouyn-Noranda, Abitibi-Ouest, Abitibi, La Vallée-de-l'Or, La Tuque, Le Domaine-du-Roy, Maria-Chapdelaine, Lac-Saint-Jean-Est, Le Saguenay-et-son-Fjord, La Haute-Côte-Nord, Manicouagan, Sept-Rivières–Caniapiscau, Minganie–Le Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent, Nord-du-Québec
Saskatchewan18 census divisions: Division No. 1 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 2 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 3 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 4 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 5 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 6 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 7 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 8 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 9 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 10 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 11 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 12 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 13 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 14 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 15 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 16 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 17 (Saskatchewan), Division No. 18 (Saskatchewan)
Newfoundland and Labrador11 census divisions: Division No. 1 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 2 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 3 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 4 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 5 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 6 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 7 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 8 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 9 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 10 (Newfoundland and Labrador), Division No. 11 (Newfoundland and Labrador)
Ontario49 census divisions: Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, Prescott and Russell, Ottawa, Leeds and Grenville, Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Hastings, Prince Edward, Northumberland (Ontario), Peterborough, Kawartha Lakes, Durham, York (Ontario), Toronto, Peel, Dufferin, Wellington, Halton, Hamilton, Niagara, Haldimand-Norfolk, Brant, Waterloo, Perth, Oxford, Elgin, Chatham-Kent, Essex, Lambton, Middlesex, Huron, Bruce, Grey, Simcoe, Muskoka, Haliburton, Renfrew, Nipissing, Parry Sound, Manitoulin, Sudbury, Greater Sudbury, Timiskaming, Cochrane, Algoma, Thunder Bay, Rainy River, Kenora
Nunavut3 census divisions: Qikiqtaaluk, Kivalliq, Kitikmeot
Alberta19 census divisions: Division No. 1 (Alberta), Division No. 2 (Alberta), Division No. 3 (Alberta), Division No. 4 (Alberta), Division No. 5 (Alberta), Division No. 6 (Alberta), Division No. 7 (Alberta), Division No. 8 (Alberta), Division No. 9 (Alberta), Division No. 10 (Alberta), Division No. 11 (Alberta), Division No. 12 (Alberta), Division No. 13 (Alberta), Division No. 14 (Alberta), Division No. 15 (Alberta), Division No. 16 (Alberta), Division No. 17 (Alberta), Division No. 18 (Alberta), Division No. 19 (Alberta)
New Brunswick15 census divisions: Saint John, Charlotte, Sunbury, Queens (New Brunswick), Kings (New Brunswick), Albert, Westmorland, Kent, Northumberland (New Brunswick), York (New Brunswick), Carleton, Victoria (New Brunswick), Madawaska, Restigouche, Gloucester
Manitoba23 census divisions: Division No. 1 (Manitoba), Division No. 2 (Manitoba), Division No. 3 (Manitoba), Division No. 4 (Manitoba), Division No. 5 (Manitoba), Division No. 6 (Manitoba), Division No. 7 (Manitoba), Division No. 8 (Manitoba), Division No. 9 (Manitoba), Division No. 10 (Manitoba), Division No. 11 (Manitoba), Division No. 12 (Manitoba), Division No. 13 (Manitoba), Division No. 14 (Manitoba), Division No. 15 (Manitoba), Division No. 16 (Manitoba), Division No. 17 (Manitoba), Division No. 18 (Manitoba), Division No. 19 (Manitoba), Division No. 20, Division No. 21, Division No. 22, Division No. 23
Yukon1 census division: Yukon
Prince Edward Island3 census divisions: Kings (Prince Edward Island), Queens (Prince Edward Island), Prince
Northwest Territories6 census divisions: Region 1, Region 2, Region 3, Region 4, Region 5, Region 6

Worked examples

Toronto

A division the size of a city

Toronto is one division, a few dozen kilometres across, on a map that spans a continent. It needs a tap area, and it sits between Peel and York.

Qikiqtaaluk

The biggest of them

Qikiqtaaluk is Baffin Island and the islands around it, the largest division in the country and most of the eastern Arctic.

Kings (Nova Scotia)

A name that is used three times

Kings in Nova Scotia is the Annapolis Valley county. The other two are in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, and the province in brackets is what tells them apart.

Frequently asked questions

How many census divisions does Canada have?

293 in the 2021 census, across ten provinces and three territories. Quebec has the most, 98, and Yukon has one: the territory is its own division.

What is a census division?

A group of neighbouring municipalities that Statistics Canada uses to publish census data. Where a province already has counties, regional districts or regional county municipalities, the census division is that unit.

Why are some divisions just a number?

Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador never gave theirs names, so Statistics Canada calls them Division No. 1 and upwards within each province.

The tier above this one is Canada Provinces. For another country at this level, see Poland Powiats.

Sources

Statistics Canada, 2021 Census boundary files, the divisions and their province codes, read from Esri Canada's copy of the layer
Census division, the tier, and how it follows each province's own counties and districts

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