Census divisions of Canada

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Census divisions are defined by the federal government bureau, Statistics Canada as the next smallest political region below province or territory, in Canada, similar to a county. They are outlined by Statistics Canada to take national population counts every five years.

In New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, census divisions are the same as counties. In Quebec and British Columbia, they follow regional municipality lines. In Ontario they follow lines of "upper-tier" municipalities, which can be counties, districts, regional municipalities or even cities depending on the part of the province (see the link below).

In Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba census divisions are numbered, and take in groups of municipalities such as cities and townships. (Thus Alberta has Counties but they're not equivalent to divisions.) In Newfoundland and Labrador, census division boundaries were drawn arbitrarily and are also numbered. However, in these provinces they primarily serve the purpose of census taking; in some of these provinces they are also used for municipal organization, and as health regions.

The Northwest Territories and Nunavut are both divided into regions. The Yukon has no census divisions, and is considered a census division in itself.

There are also smaller divisions known as census subdivisions, which generally correspond to municipal units.

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