Area units:
Provinces or colonies are shown, depending on the time period. Within these, settled area (ecumene) is coloured to show where continuous settlement occurred.
Areas for which population data is not mapped are shown in grey.

Data units:
Rural population is shown by dots, each representing 300 people. These were compiled at the census sub-district level.
Urban centres with more than 1000 people at the time are shown by square symbols, sized according to population.
Note: First nations people were under-enumerated in all the early censuses, especially in the West. The distribution of native people is better represented using other data sources in the section National Perspectives -> Native Canada.

Identify: Click on the Identify tool, then click on the map on one of the squares, to pop up a box showing the name of the urban centre.

Table: Click on the Table tool, then click or drag a rectangle on the map across one or more urban centres, to select them and pop up a table showing information about the selected features. See Table Fields below.

The population of Newfoundland (not mapped) grew at the same general rate as that of Eastern and Central Canada, from 102 000 in 1851 to 202 000 in 1891. The settled area, well established by 1836, remained restricted to the 'necklace of communities' that was tied to the coastal fishery.

Population Distribution: 1825, 1851
Dots are plotted in a random rather than a uniform manner, with greater concentration along lakes and rivers, based on historical evidence. Because aggregate values are used, the exact location of the settlers is unknown. It is not known whether or not there was a clustering around parish churches in Lower Canada, and even the location of most parish churches is unknown. Accordingly, the exact location of parish boundaries in Lower Canada has been assumed. A random location is more plausible than a clustering around assumed parish centroids.

The ca 1825 map reflects 1821 data for Upper Canada, 1824 data for New Brunswick, 1825 data for Lower Canada, and 1827 data for Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Population Distribution: 1871, 1891
The rural population was based on census-subdivision areas. Reference was made to other dot-distribution maps, to county atlases, and to present-day medium-scale topographic maps to help ensure that the placement of dots within census subdivisions was as accurate as possible.

For Québec the 1951 census-subdivision map boundaries were carried backward to 1871 in order to determine the census-subdivision boundaries for 1871 and 1891 : Because the 1871 census year was arranged geographically by both census division and subdivision, it was used as the base year. Subdivision-population remainders of less than 300 were added to an adjacent subdivision so no numbers were dropped in any one province. For incorporated areas urban-centre populations were drawn from the census, and for unincorporated areas from a research report on the population of urban nodes prepared for the HAC project. Incorporated areas with a population of fewer than 1 000 were considered rural and added to the rural population for the surrounding census subdivision. The populations of unincorporated urban nodes of more than 1 000 were subtracted from the population of the surrounding census subdivisions.

Native people were under-enumerated in both the 1871 and the 1891 censuses, especially in the West. The distribution of native people may be seen in the printed atlas Vol. II, Plates 32, 33, 34, 35, and 36.