Census of Canada: Downloading Canadian Census Analyser Data

Direct link. The Canadian Census Analyser has excellent help that details abbreviations, variables, and more.

A note about 2011 Census and NHS (National Household Survey), topic information from this webpage:

• The "2011" links you will see on the Census Analyser provide census data. 2011 Census data topics include: Population and dwelling counts; Age and sex; Families, households and marital status; Structural type of dwelling and collectives; and Language.
• The "2011 NHS" links you will see on the Census Analyser provide NHS data. NHS data topics include: Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity; Aboriginal Peoples; Education and Labour; Mobility and Migration; Language of work; Income and Housing.

You have two options here:

1. By Census Geography (e.g.: census tract)
   • If selecting by geography, you will be asked to select the year of interest on the next page.
   • No idea where to start? This will help.
   • Need a reminder? Illustrated glossary of 2016 Census geographies.
2. By year
   • If selecting by year, you will be asked to further select the census geography of interest on the next page.
   • If you're looking at 2011, see note about 2011 & 2011 NHS in Step 1 above.

Select either by Province or by any location based on the starting letter of the location (e.g.: check off “O” to find Ottawa).

This step can be a bit finicky and confusing, so you may want to watch the video that covers this part in more detail.

Select all the census variables you may need (e.g.: Population, 2011). The page includes a dynamic list that shows all the variables you have selected, from which you can deselect them later if you choose.

This step will probably take a few minutes of looking through all the sections, such as Age and sex and Language, and finding and selecting the variables you're interested in.

Decide whether or not you would like to include any of the optional details in your output format (e.g.: it is useful to include the census tract name or the province ID).

If you know you'll be joining this data to a GIS file of census geographies, make sure you check off the code and/or name for that geography. In the example below, the data will be joined to a GIS file of census tracts so the Census Tract name is checked off. Otherwise, it would not be possible to join the data to the GIS file.

If you want to join your census or NHS data to shapefiles, download the data in a dBase file. DBase files join much more easily with shapefiles than CSV or Excel files from this site: we've pulled our hair out trying to join those formats and want to save you the trouble.

Once you are happy with your selection, press the “Submit Query” button.

The final step is to actually download the files by clicking on the yellow links. Be sure to either download the header file or write down the column names in the (e.g.: COL0 is the GEO UID, which is the ID numbers for the selected geography), otherwise, you will not have a record of which data is contained in each column.

• If you are only looking at Ottawa-Gatineau, find the shapefiles here (includes historic years back to 1951).
• For Canada-wide boundary files from 1911-2021 (not all geographies for every census year), find links from this page.