Talk:List of cities in Canada

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Saint John vs St. John's[edit]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I was always under the impression that Saint John, NB was Canada's oldest city, not St. John's NL. mylesmalley 02:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Uhh, probably should've looked this up before I commented in the first place...
According to the Saint John NB page, it is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, so I'm going to change it on this page.mylesmalley 02:56, 4 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
To clear up this confusion the oldest settlement in Canada and North America that has grown into a modern city is St. John's which was discovered by John Cabot in 1497 (the oldest settlement in Canada would be L'anse aux Meadows which was found by Norse settlers around 1000 A.D.) Saint John, New Brunswick wasn't founded until the early 1600's but was incorporated (meaning it took the surronding populations and created a city) in 1758, making Saint John the oldest incorporated city in canada. This all aside, this is only a list of cities in Canada and therefore making historical facts are irrelevant. Theyab 02:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure there are native settlements much older than L'anse aux Meadows. --Arctic Gnome 00:18, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, this page is a mess.

I think that this page should be a list of Canada's larger cities in alphabetical order, not by province and territory, since we already have lists of cities by province and territory (to which this page should link).

If there are no objections, I'll effect this rearrangement. - Montréalais


This is a nice rearrangement, Montrealais, and my next comment may be baised as an Ontarioan, but Brampton and Mississauga, Ontario are 350,000 and 600,000 people strong respectively. Yes, they are part of the GTA, but we are in a seperate municipality than the megacity, we have a much different suburban culture than about 82% (a guess) of the population.

Would it be possible for an indented section underneath, like so?

Toronto, Ontario

Brampton, Ontario
Mississauga, Ontario

User:zanimum

Does Mississauga still exist? I thought it became part of the megacity. At any rate, I'd prefer that if you want to add Brampton, you do so under B. I'm worried that another hierarchical list will end up in the chaos that was here before, and would be difficult to interpret to boot ("should Hamilton go under Toronto, or not?") - Montréalais
Gee, it's not part of the megacity - well, I'll be dipped. I added Brampton and Mississauga in alphabetical order. BTW, other large cities that are part of major metropolitan areas (such as Gatineau, Quebec are already there, in alphabetical order.) - Montréalais

Winkler, Manitoba[edit]

Winkler was given city status on 2002-04-07.

Winkler's official web site history page: http://www.mywinkler.com/historical.html

I couldn't find any pages at gov.mb.ca about the upgrade, but their site refers to "City of Winkler" since that date; eg: http://www.communityprofiles.mb.ca/cgi-bin/csd/index.cgi?id=4603050

--Michael Z. 00:56, 2004 Aug 14 (UTC)

No cities in Nova Scotia?[edit]

What does it mean that there are no longer any cities in Nova Scotia?

If that is correct, then it needs some kind of explanation...

That is correct, there are no longer any cities. There are RM's however. - Earl Andrew 23:17, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What a great resource for Americans![edit]

I've been to the US on many occasions and even lived there for a few years. In my experience, even the best-educated Americans cannot name more than 3 Canadian cities, unless of course that is one of their specialties.

I applaud Wikipedia for providing this valuable resource to our geographically-impaired cousins to the south. Steve Rapaport

Nova Scotian Cities[edit]

I'm not sure why someone removed the work that I did but I have a good explaination why I put all those places in. All the places I put in were towns but since they were amalgamated into RM they than have larger population than some cities on this list. It is clearly marked a the top that there are no more cities in Nova Scotia and so I put in RM's. I also did this to show that we don't have just 2 RM's that deserve recognition. The fact that we only have 2 RM's (Halifax Regional Municipality pop. - 359,183 and Sydney Regional Municipality or the Cape Breton Regional Municipality pop. - 109 300) that have enough population to be recognized is wrong. I think that you might have not done enough research to look for other RM's that have some kind of significant population. For example Truro, Nova Scotia the population of the actual town is only 11, 457 (and as a side note, places like Winkler, Manitoba only have a population of 9, 000 but are given "city" status) and the area (meaning municipality) is 44, 276. Please don't remove my work.

This is a list of cities. Not former towns that are now amalgamated into regional municipalities. -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:08, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I realized that after I finshed I just thought that it would include RM's as well because of the heading on the Nova Scotia section. Sorry about that User:Theyab_07
There is of course a list of towns. You may wish to include them there, as long as you make sure they are noted as being no longer in existance. -- Earl Andrew - talk 18:16, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Haldimand County and Norfolk County[edit]

Haldimand County and Norfolk County have been removed from the article. Even though they are both single-tier municipalities and have since removed any lower-tier reference to their official corporate name (e.g. The Corporation of Haldimand County is the official corporate name for Haldimand County), they were both incorporated as towns in 2000, and this has not since changed. As a result, they have been removed from the Cities of Canada article.

Statistics Canada says they are cities. --curling rock Earl Andrew - talk 00:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Really? That information has to be out of date, as the municipalities have the full name of 'Haldimand County' and 'Norfolk County.' StatsCan's data doesn't include the proper name. We'll have to wait and see what the 2006 census says. Snickerdo 03:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Out of date? Were Norfolk and Haldimand cities in 2001? --curling rock Earl Andrew - talk 03:17, 10 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quebec section too large.[edit]

I think the Quebec section has too many cities. I'd remove some of the less important ones myself, but I don't know Quebec too well... -- Selmo 20:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request change[edit]

Perhaps we should limit the list of cities to include only provincial/territorial capitals, and cities with a population of at least 10,000. Many of the cities listed do not even have articles on Wikipedia, and others have very small populations. No worries though, I won't do anything without some feedback. Basser g 14:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I removed all the red links from the Quebec sections, as I believe all those towns/cities have a population under 10,000 people. If there is not an article on them by now, they are obviously not big population centre. This list should be for cities only, meaning bigger population centres (10,000 people minimum is a good suggestion by User:Basser g). Other editors, please give your opinion so we can remove all small towns from this list and keep only cities above 10,000 (or another # of your liking). Thank you. Bobo is soft 01:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This list should include any and all communities whose legal designation is "city", regardless of their population. In many provinces, 10,000 is the population cutoff for city status, but not in all; we need to respect the legal definitions. Occasionally people have added communities that aren't incorporated as cities; the answer to that is to remove them. But any community whose provincial government has legally incorporated it as a city should be on here, period. Quebec's a tricky case, admittedly. Bearcat 11:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Alright that is a good point, Bearcat. For now to make sure all lists are up to date, editors should check what the minimum cutoff for city status for their province is. Hopefully we can get a list of the cutoffs for each province here. Then we can have a concise list of places with city status in Canada. Hopefully the Quebec section will be cleaned up as well, I'll try to find what the minimum cutoff for Quebec is. Hopefully other editors can help out. Bobo is soft 05:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Important, I've found a possible solution for most of the provinces. The Statistics Canada website has a new list of metropolitan areas (CMA's) for 2006. View it here[1] Using this, by clicking on each province, viewing the metropolitan areas and then further checking each metropolitan area for cities we can keep this list up to date. For most of the provinces and territories, the Wikipedia list is pretty good. The biggest problems remains Quebec. Montreal alone has many "villes" and independant municipalities with a population of over 10,000. I haven't found any definitions of what city status is in Quebec exactly, as in a specific number. Bobo is soft 06:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The challenge in Quebec's case is that under Quebec law, no distinction between town status and city status exists; one designation, ville, covers both types of community regardless of whether they would be designated as towns or cities elsewhere in Canada. Montreal and Acton Vale are both villes; Quebec City and Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce are both villes. So for Quebec we'd need to do one of three things:
  1. Permit all municipalities designated as ville, and accept that the Quebec list will be unusually long.
  2. Include no municipalities based in Quebec.
  3. Settle on a population cutoff for listing here, but be aware that this can be disputed as an arbitrary distinction.
All three of these solutions are imperfect, but there aren't really any other options. Bearcat 19:44, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let's just use the "villes". This page will not get seriously long if we add all incorporated cities in Canada, because there simply are not very many of them. I originally used StatsCan to create the list, but there have been some changes since the last census. Notably amalgamations and de-amalgamations in Quebec as well as a handfull of towns being incorporated as cities such as Iqaluit. -- Earl Andrew - talk 19:03, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Great job to Earl Andrew and Bearcat for fixing the situation for Quebec cities and adding in those intro descriptions. Just to note for possible inclusion, for Saskatchewan, it is stated in a few articles on Saskatchen cities that the cutoff number for city status is 5000. In the article for Estevan, Saskatchewan it says, "On March 1, 1957, Estevan acquired the status of a city, which, in Saskatchewan terms, is any community of 5000 or more." In Melville, Saskatchewan it says, "Currently Saskatchewan's smallest city, its population actually falls well below the 5,000 threshold required for city status in the province". Hope this helps. Cheers to keep improving this list. Bobo is soft 05:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A minor issue, but as a jaded Edmontonian-Vancouver transplant, I find it hard to believe that Calgary is the third largest municipality in the country. The List of 100 Largest "Metropolitan Areas" seems to say otherwise. Can anyone cite the claim? Thanks. - Woozy8 00:09, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't confuse the population of a city with the population of its metropolitan area. Calgary is the third largest municipality in Canada. Vancouver, while being the third largest metropolitan area, only ranks 8th among cities because a lot of "Vancouverites" actually live in Burnaby or Surrey or New Westminster. Bearcat 01:47, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Becoming a Featured List?[edit]

Once all the provinces have an intro paragraph stating their requirements for city status, could this article become a featured list candidate? Could more experienced editors post what's left to be done for this list? Thank you. Bobo is soft 23:20, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, all the sections intro's should be referenced (WP:CITE). Then, some additional data should be added (a plain list rarely makes FL). Largest problem will be Quebec "villes" (due to the political-administrative artifice, the list is huge now). The "Significant Cities" sections reads like trivia, that should probably be overhauled. It would be nice to have cities that form Census Metropolitan Areas stand out somehow. --Qyd 22:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Cities[edit]

Why are there places lifted that are barely villages, let alone cities? Alaric the Goth 00:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC) The regulations for what constitutes a city in Canada is left to the regulatory authories in each province. So for example, in Manitoba, a city needs to have 7500 residents to be able to become a city. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pstamara (talk • contribs) 14:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cities by UTC timezone?[edit]

You may find it usefull (perhaps not anymore now that the category was deleted) to peruse the cities that link to the different timezones. (ex. User:CyclePat/UTC Timezone show what I tried to do) I tried to make prove it's usefullness but CfD prevailed. Not enough support for such a category. So, just to let you know that many cities utilize the {{template:Infobox city}}. Many cities have a link to the related UTC timezone. You can find a list of cities by clicking the corresponding UTC timezone (ex.: UTC-5 for Ontario), and then clicking the What links here. And if ever you feel like bringing back the category we will need at least 5 people to support this. GO to my project WP:CCT and start a section to voice your opinion. When we have enough people we'll start the cat. --CyclePat 22:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

English Name of Brome Lake - Though this applies to other places, too...[edit]

Hi there. I changed the name of Brome Lake in the Quebec section from "Lac-Brome" to "Brome Lake". This change has been reverted. I support my original change, but will make my point here and invite discussion before changing back...

a) The article about the municipality (ville) is located at Brome Lake, Quebec, not Lac-Brome.

b) The above, and some simple Googling can easily convince one that that the English name of the location and the municipality is "Brome Lake".

c) The link in the text redirects to "Brome Lake", anyway.

d) The website of the Town government itself uses "Town of Brome Lake" in English and "Ville de Lac-Brome" in French. [2]

e) If Stats Can were the only valid source (Stats Can was referenced in the edit summary of the person who undid my change), then Montreal should have an accent on the "e". However, it doesn't, because that's not the name of that place in English.

f) Other lists of cities (such as, say, World's largest municipalities by population) don't use foreign names (vis: "Mexico City", not "Ciudad de México")

I don't want to be a pissant about this - there are people who try to Anglicise things beyond any reasonability, and I don't want to be one of them. However, I do believe that in this case, the English name really is "Brome Lake" AshleyMorton (talk) 21:04, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, just like Montreal, English name for the English Wikipedia. 117Avenue (talk) 00:36, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Notwithstanding a)-d) above, this article features lists of incorporated cities/villes by applicable province/territory in Canada. Within each list are the populations of each city/ville from the last census by StatCan. If one were to follow the StatCan reference to validate the population of "Brome Lake", or find additional census information on the city/ville (i.e., dwelling count, area, population density) the reader would not find it because the reference uses "Lac-Brome". If the reader were to bypass the reference and search "Brome Lake" at StatCan's community profiles utility, the reader would get "no match found". Therefore, the English version of the official name does not work in this context.
The Montreal/Montréal example is not the best example to rationalize Lac-Brome becoming Brome Lake in this context. There is really no difference in spelling, rather it is how the "e" is treated (with or without the accent). Lac-Brome becoming Brome Lake involves a reversal of words and a genuine difference in spelling (Lac/Lake). (Also note that the English version of the Montreal official website uses the "é").
Lac-Brome is not a foreign name. It is a Canadian name in one of the country's two official languages.
If it weren't for the reference-dependent context in which Lac-Brome is subject of under this article, I would agree with you 100% on a)-e) above. Unless there is a WP guideline that requires the English spelling despite this reference-dependent context, I'd be hard-pressed to consider going with Brome Lake in this article. I hope this explanation makes sense. Hwy43 (talk) 03:11, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. Your comment about it being very reference-dependent is a good one. I have been quite active within the world of ethnic and "racial" statistics as taken from Stats Can's numbers. In those situations, I feel it's very important that we slavishly follow the terms from Stats Can, because when we start getting into relabelling, say "East Indian" or "Black" (Stats Can's terms), or folk start stating the numbers from "Not a visible minority" as directly equivalent to "White", then we get into SERIOUS trouble. Thus, I think I'm going to agree with you, because this is really very strongly reference-dependent (which kind of brings up the question - should it really be on here, when a single, properly-linked reference might be more effective, but that's for another day). However, I think that it might be effective to put the English name in parentheses after the name as it appears in the Stats Can data. For one thing, this avoids redirects, but for another thing, if an English speaker comes to this table looking for "Brome Lake", they might not think to look for Lac-Brome. That's a bit farfetched (and obviously not a problem with something like Montreal/Montréal), but could happen, particularly because they had a hockey team that was known in English Canada as the Brome Lake Ducks. I'll make the stylistic edit I'm proposing - let me know what you think. AshleyMorton (talk) 03:46, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for understanding. Your suggestion about the parentheses was something I pondered as well. I have no opposition to it. Hopefully it won't cause discomfort for others. It may necessitate some homework for consistent application for other communities in the article that experience the same circumstances you described above for this community. It appears we both share the same passion for strictly following StatCan terms. Another example I've come across often is editors relabelling StatCan "protestant" numbers as directly equivalent to "mormon/LDS" numbers. Hwy43 (talk) 05:45, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and I agree that I used the wrong word when I referred to it as a "foreign" name. However, it's still the case that it's non-English, and this is not the Canadian Encyclopedia. Rather it is the English Wikipedia. Anyway, I hope my changes meet muster.AshleyMorton (talk) 03:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would now agree with you 100% on a)-f) above as amended where the context isn't reference-dependent – all great points. Hwy43 (talk) 05:45, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that WP:ENGLISH says to use English. 117Avenue (talk) 05:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for providing. Per the naming convention subcat guideline, I believe this is a situation where the convention is best treated with common sense where occasional exceptions apply. Hwy43 (talk) 05:50, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
117Avenue - You're right, of course, but I think there is a valid, though minor, distinction between what a municipality or other governmentally-determined thing is called, and what the place, in the general sense of the term is called. The second (place) means that the only consideration, really, is what the colloquial, common, informed usage uses. This would lead to my initial argument (saying the reference should be to Brome Lake, Quebec). I believe that it should also guide the selection of the name of the primary article. However, if we are very narrowly talking about a municipality - in this case we are very narrowly using Statistics Canada date - then we should use the name that the "namer" (municipal council, Stats Can) give it. Another example would be Grand Falls, New Brunswick. I believe that the article, in general, on the English Wikipedia, should be located at Grand Falls, New Brunswick. However, the municipality has decided to name itself Grand Falls / Grand-Sault, and uses that double-barreled version of its name in all official communication. Therefore, if we are narrowly referring to the municipality, then we should actually use that awkward, but accurate, formation. I will continue to fight for English names, like you, but not in narrow situations where we are only talking about a single reference or municipality - then they get to pick their own name, in my books. AshleyMorton (talk) 03:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With this edit, "Lac-Brome" was dropped in favour of "Brome Lake". Per the previous discussion above, I feel it is necessary to retain "Lac-Brome" in some manner to ensure that a reader can navigate to the information about this ville at the StatCan reference that supports its population. I also agree however that "Brome Lake" should be the primary entry for alphabetization of the table per the article name on English Wikipedia.
The user that made the above edit and I have discussed this back and forth on our talk pages. As a result, I will change the entry for [[Brome Lake, Quebec|Brome Lake]] to [[Brome Lake, Quebec|Brome Lake]] (Lac-Brome). Hwy43 (talk) 05:20, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ontarios Counties[edit]

Some Ontario Counties have been added to the list. Although these few select counties may run like a city government, they are in no way a city, nor do they claim to be. I think they need to be removed from the list. UrbanNerd (talk) 03:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Per the reference provided,[3] these municipalities are recognized as cities by Statistics Canada, which is fed this information by the Province of Ontario. Preliminary research shows that atleast four of them are recognized as cities by Municipal Affairs and Housing,[4] while atleast three of these four claim to be cities as well.[5][6][7] Further research may reveal more. I'll undertake and report back. I certainly don't like or agree with it, despite even living within one at one point, but so long as a reliable source verifies they are cities, they should remain. Hwy43 (talk) 03:32, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
They may be governed like cities and classified as city-like by reliable government sources, but cities they are not. "City" is not in their name. Much like the Town of Markham, (Until it recently becoming the City of Markham) it preferred the "Town" badge, eventhough it's population qualified it to be a city for quite a while, it was listed under the List of Towns article. UrbanNerd (talk) 03:52, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have trouble following your logic. A city is a city, regardless of whether or not they used to be counties. To say otherwise would be original research. -- Earl Andrew - talk 03:56, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, a city is a city. But Prince Edward County, Norfolk County, and the County of Brant do not claim to be cities. Single-tier does not automatically make you a "city". City-like, yes, actual city, no. UrbanNerd (talk) 22:20, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, a city (as recognized by Municipal Affairs) by any other name is a city. 117Avenue (talk) 06:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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