Historical Populations: Decades in Canada's Top 3, Top 5, and Top 10 - Page 2

flar · #21 Posted **Jan 22, 2009, 4:35 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by flar

There were dozens of towns larger than Calgary in 1901 (it was 57th largest in Canada at the time)

Here is the list of 11th to 30th place in 1901. I have not verified this data, but it looks about right. Thunder Bay did not exist in 1900, and populations weren't listed for Fort William and Port Arthur-->I suspect they had a couple thousand each at the time.



Vancouver	BC		26100

Victoria	BC		20800

Kingston	ON		18000

Brantford	ON		15700

Windsor		ON		12000

Charlottetown	PE		11400

Guelph		ON		10600

St. Thomas	ON		10400

Sherbrooke	QB		10100

Trois-Rivières	QB		10000

Belleville	ON		9900

Sydney		NS		9900

Peterborough	ON		9700

Stratford	ON		9500

Moncton		NB		9000

Woodstock	ON		8800

Brockville	ON		8800

Sarnia		ON		8200

Owen Sound	ON		7500

Galt		ON		7500

The other major omissions I can think of might be St. Catharines, Welland, Kitchener (Berlin) and Niagara Falls--not data. I didn't search that hard, I will update this if I have time to look for better data.

Acajack · #22 Posted **Jan 22, 2009, 4:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by flar

There were dozens of towns larger than Calgary in 1901 (it was 57th largest in Canada at the time)

Here is the list of 11th to 30th place in 1901. I have not verified this data, but it looks about right. Thunder Bay did not exist in 1900, and populations weren't listed for Fort William and Port Arthur-->I suspect they had a couple thousand each at the time.



Vancouver	BC		26100

Victoria	BC		20800

Kingston	ON		18000

Brantford	ON		15700

Windsor		ON		12000

Charlottetown	PE		11400

Guelph		ON		10600

St. Thomas	ON		10400

Sherbrooke	QB		10100

Trois-Rivières	QB		10000

Belleville	ON		9900

Sydney		NS		9900

Peterborough	ON		9700

Stratford	ON		9500

Moncton		NB		9000

Woodstock	ON		8800

Brockville	ON		8800

Sarnia		ON		8200

Owen Sound	ON		7500

Galt		ON		7500

Wow! We all knew about it already but this thread really underlines the tremendous sea-change that was the 20th century urban population explosion.

flar · #23 Posted **Jan 22, 2009, 4:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acajack

Wow! We all knew about it already but this thread really underlines the tremendous sea-change that was the 20th century urban population explosion.

I doubt we'll ever see another population explosion like Vancouver and Winnipeg experienced in the early 1900s. They went from nowhere to third/fourth largest in the country over the course of a decade or two.

Architype · #24 Posted **Jan 22, 2009, 6:19 PM**

Flar, here are some population figures I have for St. John's Newfoundland, just for comparison, from various reports and census years. I no longer know the exact sources however. Subsequent figures are easier to obtain.

St John's NL:
1675 - 185
1753 - 1,123
1766 - 1,100
1786 - 2,500
1793 - 3,000
1794 - 3,993
1807 - 5,000
1813 - 10,000
1850 - 19,000
1869 - 19,000
1879 - 30,000
1912 - 34,000

Edit - So I am guessing that it would have been in the top ten for five or six decades between 1850 and 1910.

vid · #25 Posted **Jan 23, 2009, 11:38 AM**

Port Arthur and Fort William

IIRC:

1884 5,000
1892 7,500
1901 15,000

From Page 59, Thunder Bay: Rivalry to Unity (Tronrud, Thorold J; Epp, Ernest A.; and others. (1995); Thunder Bay Historical Society, pp. 59. ISBN 0-920119-22-0)

1911 27,719
1914 Around 45,000 (The book has a chart with estimated populations based one whatever source they cite later in the book, and it doesn't give an exact number. The spike and decline is huge though. It happened very fast, and went below 1911 levels in 1915 and 1916.)

From City of Thunder Bay statistics based on Stats Can data. These numbers, unlike the preceeding ones, include the townships of Neebing, McIntyre and part of McTavish so that they are more comparable to the current city limits.

1921 35,427
1931 46,095
1941 55,011
1951 66,108
1956 77,600
1961 92,490
1966 104,539
1971 108,411
1976 111,476
1981 112,486
1986 112,272
1991 113,946
1996 113,662
2001 109,016
2006 109,140

The city boomed a lot between 1906 and 1914, largely because of all the jobs the two cities attracted with bonuses (bribes). The city's population was largely men. When the war started, the population crashed because the men had to go to war. The city was growing by at least a thousand every week for a few months. Between 1906 and 1911, crowding in some areas was so bad that reporters compared it to slums in India. Parts of my neighbourhood had people living 20 to a house and there was no municipal sewage system.

Port Arthur and Fort William became cities in April 1907, Fort William wasn't large enough to be made a city but became one anyway because otherwise they'd bitch.

Calgary became a town in the same year as Port Arthur (1884), while Edmonton was incorporated as a town in the same year as Fort William (1892). Calgary became a city in 1894 and Edmonton in 1905, but Port Arthur and Fort William, when combined, surpassed both (but not both combined) for much of the period before WWI, and possibly a short time in the 1920s though that might be stretching things.

flar · #26 Posted **Jan 23, 2009, 1:15 PM**

^^the figures I have for Thunder Bay started in 1921 with 35,400 so they must be based on the stats can data. Thanks, I'll add this to the spreadsheet.

flar · #27 Posted **Jan 23, 2009, 1:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Architype

Flar, here are some population figures I have for St. John's Newfoundland, just for comparison, from various reports and census years. I no longer know the exact sources however. Subsequent figures are easier to obtain.

St John's NL:
1675 - 185
1753 - 1,123
1766 - 1,100
1786 - 2,500
1793 - 3,000
1794 - 3,993
1807 - 5,000
1813 - 10,000
1850 - 19,000
1869 - 19,000
1879 - 30,000
1912 - 34,000

Edit - So I am guessing that it would have been in the top ten for five or six decades between 1850 and 1910.

Six times in the top 10.

The St. John's data I found is for different years than yours but the numbers are close. My source for this is not reliable, historical populations are notoriously difficult to pin down.

1911 32300
1901 29600
1891 29700
1881 28600
1874 23890
1871 23000
1869 22550
1857 24600
1836 14946
1825 12000

mylesmalley · #28 Posted **Jan 23, 2009, 4:47 PM**

Bear in mind though that Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada until 1949. BC wasn't until 1871, and the West didnt' join until 1870 (as Rupert's land, later North West Territories).

vid · #29 Posted **Jan 23, 2009, 4:51 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by flar

^^the figures I have for Thunder Bay started in 1921 with 35,400 so they must be based on the stats can data. Thanks, I'll add this to the spreadsheet.

That's where the city's figures start. I'm not sure why there aren't numbers for any years before that. :\

Nudrock · #30 Posted **Jan 23, 2009, 8:10 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by flar

I doubt we'll ever see another population explosion like Vancouver and Winnipeg experienced in the early 1900s. They went from nowhere to third/fourth largest in the country over the course of a decade or two.

According to the charts, Vancouver went from less than tenth to top 5 within a decade.
According to the charts Vancouver was in the top-10 for 10 decades and in the top-5 for those same 10 decades.