Geographic Units

Below are the different geographic units that contain data.

Province

Portion of Canada's land area governed by a political authority. Canada is divided into 10 provinces and 3 territories.

Census Metro Area (CMA)

Area consisting of one or more neighbouring municipalities situated around a core. A census metropolitan area must have a total population of at least 100,000 of which 50,000 or more live in the core.

Census Division (CD)

Group of neighbouring municipalities joined together for the purposes of regional planning, and of managing common services (such as police or ambulance services). These groupings are established under laws in effect in certain provinces of Canada.

Census Subdivision (CSD)

Area that is a municipality or an area that is deemed to be equivalent to a municipality for statistical reporting purposes (e.g. as an Indian reserve or an unorganized territory). Municipal status is defined by laws in effect in each province and territory in Canada.

Census Tract (CT)

Small relatively stable geographic areas that usually have a population of less than 10,000 persons, based on data from the previous Census of Population Program. They are located in census metropolitan areas and in census agglomerations that had a core population of 50,000 or more in the previous census.

Dissemination Area (DA)

Small area composed of one or more neighbouring dissemination blocks, with a population of 400 to 700 persons. All of Canada is divided into dissemination areas.

Forward Sortation Area

A geographical region in which all postal codes start with the same three characters.