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

flar · #1 Posted **Jan 20, 2009, 6:43 AM**

The number of decades that each city was among Canada's top 3, top 5 and top 10 largest cities by population, 1851-2001.

vid · #2 Posted **Jan 20, 2009, 12:17 PM**

If you went by year and slightly stretched the definition you could have included Thunder Bay.

Thunder Bay: We were bigger than Calgary and Edmonton for about a year in the 1910s!

1ajs · #3 Posted **Jan 20, 2009, 3:06 PM**

shows how young this country is looking at those graphs

Rico Rommheim · #4 Posted **Jan 20, 2009, 4:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid

If you went by year and slightly stretched the definition you could have included Thunder Bay.

Yeah well he didn't. Tough.

Canadian Mind · #5 Posted **Jan 20, 2009, 11:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by 1ajs

shows how young this country is looking at those graphs

Well Quebec is about 400 years old, so it should have been listed as being one fo the top three for 36 decades.

J-MAN · #6 Posted **Jan 20, 2009, 11:33 PM**

depends what you consider old.. the Egyptian cities where thousands of years old so compared to that they are pretty young..

especially since there are people alive today around 100 years old...

flar · #7 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 3:40 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

Well Quebec is about 400 years old, so it should have been listed as being one fo the top three for 36 decades.

"The number of decades that each city was among Canada's top 3, top 5 and top 10 largest cities by population, 1851-2001."

Even that's technically incorrect, since Canada has only existed since 1867. It would be interesting to trace it further back, westward expansion had only made it to Ontario in those days. Only a short time before 1851, Toronto was rivaled by places like Kingston and Niagara-On-The-Lake.

Architype · #8 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 6:19 AM**

Did you check the figures for St.John's NL? It may have been close to Saint John NB.

Acajack · #9 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 3:32 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-MAN

depends what you consider old.. the Egyptian cities where thousands of years old so compared to that they are pretty young..

especially since there are people alive today around 100 years old...

Geez... you’re comparing us to places that are among the oldest continuously-inhabited settlements on Earth! Even Rome can’t hold a candle to that!

Not saying that this is your case, but the old “we’re a young country, we don’t have much history” is usually a bit of a Canadian cop-out to justify not knowing anything about it.

Many if not most cities in Europe were founded just a few hundred years before places in Canada like Quebec City, Trois-Rivières, Montreal and St. John’s.

flar · #10 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 3:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Architype

Did you check the figures for St.John's NL? It may have been close to Saint John NB.

I don't have the figures for St. John's, but I suspect that it might have made the top 5 in the mid 1800s.

Rico Rommheim · #11 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 4:05 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by flar

I don't have the figures for St. John's, but I suspect that it might have made the top 5 in the mid 1800s.

Too bad it wasn't part of Canada back then.

Acajack · #12 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 4:12 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Too bad it wasn't part of Canada back then.

flar · #13 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 6:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Too bad it wasn't part of Canada back then.

That's why it wasn't included in my original data.

MolsonExport · #14 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 6:53 PM**

did trois rivieres ever place in the top 10?

flar · #15 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 6:57 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

did trois rivieres ever place in the top 10?

Perhaps if we went back before 1850. Ontario was just getting going in the first half of the 19th C. I should track down that information sometime.

trueviking · #16 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 7:03 PM**

cool charts...winnipeg was in the top 5 for 7 decades....wow.

Architype · #17 Posted **Jan 21, 2009, 8:50 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by flar

I don't have the figures for St. John's, but I suspect that it might have made the top 5 in the mid 1800s.

There are figures, but they are hard to find, but it would have been larger than Toronto at one time, and close to the population of Saint John NB, perhaps around the same time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

Too bad it wasn't part of Canada back then.

Canada wasn't even a country then (until.... you know when). The western provinces weren't there either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by flar

That's why it wasn't included in my original data.

I knew that but thought I'd mention it anyway.

flar · #18 Posted **Jan 22, 2009, 2:38 PM**

Based on some rough data, St. John's would have made the top ten 6 times, but wouldn't have cracked the top 5.

Also, in the first chart there is a mistake, Saint John should only have been in the top five three times.

Although Trois-Rivières is an old settlement, it had under 10,000 people before 1900.

Acajack · #19 Posted **Jan 22, 2009, 3:52 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by flar

Although Trois-Rivières is an old settlement, it had under 10,000 people before 1900.

Calgary had less than 5,000 people in 1901.

flar · #20 Posted **Jan 22, 2009, 4:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acajack

Calgary had less than 5,000 people in 1901.

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