Settlement Patterns: Comparing Communities in Canada and the World

Hook: read the land from above

Look at a satellite view of the farmland near Montréal, then near Guelph, then near Regina. Near Montréal you see long, thin strips running back from the river. Near Guelph you see a grid of rectangles. Near Regina you see huge squares with a farmstead here and there. These patterns were drawn by surveyors centuries ago, and they still shape where people live today.

Urban, rural and northern Canada

Statistics Canada uses precise definitions:

• A population centre has at least 1,000 people and at least 400 people per km². Everywhere else is rural.
• A census agglomeration (CA) has a core of at least 10,000 people.
• A census metropolitan area (CMA) has at least 100,000 people, with at least 50,000 in the core.

In 2021, 17.8% of Canadians (6.6 million) lived in rural areas, down from 18.7% in 2016. The rural population grew only 0.4%, while urban areas grew 6.3% (Statistics Canada).

Northern communities are usually small and clustered, often on a coast or river, and many are fly-in: no year-round road. Iqaluit, Nunavut's capital and only city, has fewer than 10,000 people. Food, fuel and building materials arrive by air or on the summer sealift (ships), which raises costs.

How history shaped the pattern

• New France (1600s and 1700s): the seigneurial system gave each farm a narrow frontage on the St. Lawrence, the main highway of the time. Houses lined up along the river, then along roads, forming linear settlements still visible in Quebec.
• Ontario, from the 1780s: surveyors laid out townships with concession roads and sideroads. Villages grew at crossroads and mill sites, which is why so many Ontario roads are named "Concession 6" or "Sideroad 10".
• The Prairies from the 1870s: the Dominion Land Survey divided land into square sections. Families lived on their own farms, far apart, creating a scattered pattern. Towns grew at railway stops.
• First Nations reserves were created through treaties and the Indian Act, often on land chosen by government. Many are small compared with traditional territories. Inuit lived on the land in seasonal camps; most permanent Inuit communities formed in the 1950s and 1960s, often under government pressure. In the High Arctic relocation of the 1950s (beginning in 1953), the federal government moved Inuit families from Inukjuak (Nunavik) and Pond Inlet to Grise Fiord and Resolute, far from home. The families faced extreme hardship, and promises that they could return home were broken; Canada formally apologized in 2010.

Comparing communities inside Canada (D1.5)

Use the same characteristics every time you compare: population size and growth, density, age structure, diversity, main jobs, housing types, transportation and services.

• Toronto CMA: 6,202,225 people (2021), grew 4.6%. Very diverse (46.6% immigrants). High-rise core, large suburbs, subway and commuter rail. Very high housing costs.
• Kelowna, B.C.: 222,162 people, the fastest-growing CMA (+14.0%). Many retirees and people moving from other provinces; growth spreads into the hills and along Okanagan Lake.
• Saguenay, Que.: 161,567 people, no growth (0.0%). Mostly French-speaking; an older population; aluminium and forest industries.
• A northern fly-in community: a few hundred to a few thousand people, very young, mostly Indigenous; homes clustered near the shore and airstrip; high costs of food and housing.

(Population figures: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census.)

Comparing with the rest of the world

• Density: many cities in Europe and Asia are much denser than Canadian cities, with more apartments and more people using transit, walking and cycling. Most Canadian suburbs were built around the car.
• Growth: many cities in Africa and South Asia are growing very fast because of high birth rates and rural-to-urban migration. UN-Habitat estimates that more than one billion people live in slums or informal settlements, without secure housing or full services.
• Ageing and shrinking: in Japan, almost 3 in 10 people are 65 or older, and many rural towns are losing people. Canada's Atlantic and some northern Ontario communities face a smaller version of the same pattern.
• Similarities: around the world, people move to cities for jobs and education, and suburbs grow at the edges. Toronto, like many global cities, attracts migrants from everywhere.