Lower Mainland Population Thread
 

Looks like BC Stats released its latest population estimates for BC municipalities in 2022. They changed their groupings for municipalities from Regional Districts to Development Regions so the Lower Mainland is listed as "Mainland/Southwest" rather than "GVRD" and "Fraser Valley" separately like before.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/d...tion-estimates

Anyways, here are the highlights for the Lower Mainland:

Vancouver finally >700k
Only 73k between Surrey and Vancouver (this gap was 140k in 2011)

City...2020 pop...2021 pop...2022 pop...2019-20 change (%)...20-21 change...21-22 change

Mainland/Southwest...3,159,622...3,185,697...3,270,920...1.3%...0.8%...2.7%
Vancouver...699,271...694,351...706,012...0.9%...-0.7%...1.7%
Surrey........600,964...611,568...633,234...2.4%...1.8%...3.5%
Burnaby......257,851...260,961...270,264...1.3%...1.2%...3.6%
Richmond....215,149...216,760...222,954...0.6%...0.7%...2.9%
Abbotsford..162,375...164,806...168,478...1.6%...1.5%...2.2%
Coquitlam...152,305...154,283...159,285...1.1%...1.3%...3.2%
Langley DM.133,389...135,492...142,043...1.5%...1.6%...4.8%
Delta..........111,458...111,879...113,347...1.1%...0.4%...1.3%
Chilliwack.....94,658.....95,912.....97,174...1.0%...1.3%...1.3%
Maple Ridge..91,839.....93,620.....96,378...0.5%...1.9%...2.9%
North Van DM90,444.....90,846.....92,390...0.1%...0.4%...1.7%
New West......82,520.....83,495.....85,708...2.7%...1.2%...2.7%
Poco.............63,797.....63,796.....65,246...0.1%...0.0%...2.3%
N Van City.....58,670.....59,834.....61,973...1.4%...2.0%...3.6%
West Van.......44,563.....44,856....45,406...0.9%...0.7%...1.2%
Mission..........42,860.....43,247....43,706...0.0%...0.9%...1.1%
Port Moody.....35,262.....35,408....36,786..-0.1%...0.4%...3.9%
Langley, City...28,085.....28,630....30,084...1.0%...1.9%...5.1%
Squamish.......21,891.....22,867....23,652...2.6%...4.5%...3.4%
White Rock.....21,060.....21,148....21,807...0.0%...0.4%...3.1%
Pitt Meadows..19,834.....19,878.....20,399..-0.5%...0.2%...2.6%

Thanks for this. I am always trying to calculate the North Shore, city & districts, in my head, since they should all be one of course. Now it totals: 199,769. :)

If you add in Lions Bay (1,325), it totals 201,094.

Also notable, Vancouver Island, is now over 900k, 907,480.

almost 200K spread out from Deep Cove to Horseshoe Bay.

Glad there is growing recognition and use of the Lower Mainland geography for population, the cutoff between Metro Vancouver and FV seemed arbitrary relative to the market size for various comparisons such as media market. I know StatsCan also has a Lower Mainland geographic but it rarely gets published or talked about when referring to Vancouver, even in reference to it as a greater regional entity.

~3.3 million is where this region would stand in 2023 if we had a CSA type demographic figure like the US. That's much bigger than the 2.5 million that people are still using today to refer to Greater Vancouver.

It looks like BC Stats aren't generating their own data for annual population estmates. The spreadsheet download for the data sources it to Statistics Canada, and the numbers are identical to those released by Statistics Canada on 11th January.

There are some odd variations between the 2021 census data and the 2021 estimates. A few small jurisdictions like Lion's Bay and Bowen Island had higher census counts than the estimates show. This might mean they haven't reconciled the estimates with the census data.

While the overall Metro Vancouver difference between the census and the 2021 estimate is 4.7%, there's a much lower difference in some places - for example the District of North Vancouver estimate is only 3% more than the census, while Burnaby and Vancouver are 4.8%, and Surrey is 7.6% - which perhaps suggests that's where they think the greatest undercount was seen.

Thanks for the stats - a few random thoughts

The anemic growth in Vancouver, which is the most desirable part of the region, with the most amenities and best transit, is such a huge failure of governance and planning.

2.7% increase in one year is pretty huge, that is a 'doubling every 26 years' rate of growth. If a country grew that fast in a year, it would be 15th in the world for growth rate, similar to Cameroon or Liberia.

It always surprises me how many people live in PoCo. It feels smaller than that to me, perhaps it is the lack of condo towers, or just that it is spread across distinct areas.

Surprised that Langley City is growing as fast as Langley District, I didn't think they had room for that level of growth.

Langley city has quite a few buildings going up right now, mostly as infill or replacing older places. A new one just finished just next to the Casino, seems like an odd spot to live given its neighbors, but there are people living in it now. Not sure if it's rentals or condos though. A lot of empty lots are starting to fill up.

It will be interesting to see how long Vancouver can maintain its lead over Surrey.

When the new multiplex zoning comes into effect in about a year, basically every residential property will be eligible to be developed into higher density, with any single lot zoned 1 FSR 4plex and 6 plex. And lots of planning areas that include high density towers and medium density rental buildings. That should provide a pretty big boost to population growth in the next decade.

Surrey's estimated to overtake Vancouver sometime after 2040.

Did that estimate take into account the more aggressive planning policies the CoV is putting into place in the next few years? It will be interesting to see how far off that estimate is.

Population estimate models generally don't consider zoning. They use births, deaths and migration based on past patterns of migration. The zoning potential already exists for a huge potential population increase - Vancouver could easily have over a million people, in terms of theoretical capacity. (So could Surrey). There was potential for tens of thousands of already zoned units that could have been built in Vancouver, (and in Surrey) in every year in the past decade. There are thousands of units rezoned, but not yet started construction. But in Vancouver the average in the past 10 years was 5,906 housing starts a year, and in Surrey 4,237.

The population change doesn't necessarily relate to the added housing, it's all about demographic change. There were 16,690 more units built in Vancouver than Surrey in the past 10 years, but Surrey's population grew by 62,349 more over that 10 year period if those BC Stats estimates are correct. (Surrey +131,171, Vancouver +74,822).

Now, Surrey's growth could slow down if they build many more small condos with 1 and 2 person households, and fewer family-sized townhouses. But last year there were 5,832 children born in Surrey, and 4,959 in Vancouver. And we know families who have children in Vancouver sometimes move out to the suburbs to move to a house, but families who have children in the suburbs seldom move into the city. Average household size in Surrey in 2021 was 3.06, exactly the same as in 2011. In Vancouver it fell from 2.28 to 2.17

Adding a few thousand ground-oriented 4-plex and 6-plex units throughout Vancouver in the next decade wouldn't significantly change the pattern of growth. And Surrey might introduce new zoning for their SFH areas too.

Where the projections might be wrong is further out - say 2040 onwards. By then the 'bulge' of the boomers will almost all have died - the oldest boomers are already aged 78. Who replaces them in their current housing may see the numbers shift (in terms of household size), especially as they sometimes occupy a house with a couple, or even a single-person household.

Yeah I know' It was a rhetorical question. In the context of a big city, land use policy will have more of an influence on a cities growth compared to birth rate and migration. Migrants first choice when they come here is the city of Vancouver. The growth rate of this city solely depends on the number of housing units that are available.

Housing supply is potential growth; actual growth is fuelled by desirability (jobs, amenities, infrastructure, services, safety, etc etc), and that's much harder to quantify outside of YoY rates.

Proportionatly, not any more, although that might have been true in the past. Surrey had 562,000 residents in the 2021 census data, and 39,910 of them were immigrants who had arrived between 2016 and 2021 (7.1% of the 2021 population). Vancouver had 650,000, and 41,360 were recent immigrants (6.4% of the total). So Surrey now attracts a higher proportion of immigrants, relative to its population (and almost the same total overall). Vancouver had 27% of total recent immigrants, Surrey had 26%.

45% of Surrey's total population are immigrants. In Vancouver it's 42%, in Burnaby it's 50%, in Richmond 60%.

It's a factor, but it's not the only factor. Demographic change is much more complex than that. Vancouver's population was lower in both 1976 and 1981 than in 1971, despite having 20,000 more occupied homes in 1981 compared to 1971. (Surrey's population boomed over those ten years).

Surrey is running out of greenfield development space. They'll have to densify like everyone else. I expect their population growth to slow. Barring anything major, Vancouver will continue to be the most populated municipality for the foreseeable future.

Weren't there projections a couple decades back predicting this would have already happened?

Vancouver will always be the municipality that people actually want to move to. Surrey really only offers lower cost per square foot housing as an advantage over Vancouver, Surrey will have to continue offering lower cost housing in order to remain competitive since there's no other reason to live there. As Surrey densifies prices will rise and this value proposition will deteriorate.

I think it's entirely possible that Surrey could eventually progress from being a a bedroom community for Vancouver to being on equal footing with Vancouver. What does Vancouver have that makes it desirable, besides its name? Here is a non-exhaustive list:

• Proximity to the North Shore mountains
• Good beaches on the ocean
• Stanley Park
• Better transit than the rest of the Metro
• More walkable and bikeable than the rest of the Metro
• A large number and wide variety of employers
• A density of restaurants and entertainment options unmatched by any Canadian city west of Toronto

Now, obviously Surrey can't move closer to the mountains, but it does have ocean access that could be improved significantly. And Surrey is also much closer to the U.S. and has better highway access than Vancouver. And the remainder of that list is something Surrey will add over time as its population continues to grow.

Projections from Statistics Canada, BC Stats and Metro Vancouver have always shown Surrey's population overtaking Vancoover's somewhere soon after 2041.

Statements from Surrey politicians (usually seeking funding for transit, a new hospital or some other public facility) have often claimed that Surrey will overtake Vancouver 'in the next ten years' (or some other short time-frame). They also use the misleading '20,000 people moved to Surrey last year' without mentioning the 10,000 who left the city.

In reality, Surrey grew by around 10,000 people a year, in the past decade and Vancouver around 6,000. So if those rates of growth continue, to make up the 90,000 difference that existed in 2021 will take about 22 years.

That's almost certainly untrue. Who you know who is already here, and where there are networks to help settle in, plays a big part in where people actually want to move to. Nearly 50% of recent immigrants to Surrey were born in India, while less that 10% of Vancouver recent immigrants were born there. Just under 6% of Vancouver's recent immigrants came from the USA, under 2% of Surrey's. 3% of Vancouver's recent immigrants came from Mexico, 0.5% of Surrey's. etc. etc.

At this point there is too much history and weight behind Vancouver for Surrey to ever really overcome. Can anyone imagine overseas friends or family boasting about their trip to Surrey? Is there any example in history where a suburb has eclipsed the historical city in that manner?

The only thing really aiding Surrey is the continued balkanization of Metro Vancouver into ridiculously small municipalities. For example, there is really no logical reason for Burnaby to exist as a civic entity separate from Vancouver other than tenuous thread of slightly different history. It should be one large city.