35,151,728 Dots

Inspired by popular dot maps showing racial segregation and ethnic diversity in American cities, I created a similar visualization of Canada using 2016 census data—13.67 gigabytes of it, to be exact.

The lowest level for which complete data are available are dissemination areas. There are over 56,000 of them across the country and each represents about 600 people, whether they comprise a whole rural municipality or just a few urban blocks.

I cleaned the data in R, and used GIS to generate one dot per person in each dissemination area, colour-coded into six categories. From the national map above, the clearest takeaways are: rural southern Canada is largely white, especially in the east; Indigenous peoples tend to live further north and west; and the high level of cultural diversity Canada is known for remains concentrated in urban areas.

By looking more closely at these urban areas, nine of which are mapped below, we can get a better picture.

Downtown cores are generally diverse, but the older residential neighbourhoods immediately surrounding them are mostly white. Various inner suburbs serve as minority enclaves, especially for Asian Canadians, while whites again predominate in the outer exurbs and bedroom towns.

Black Canadians are visibly concentrated in parts of Toronto, Montreal and Halifax; Winnipeg has the largest urban Indigenous community. Members of these groups, as well as those not included in any of the other categories, are dispersed throughout the other cities. Cities in Quebec have noticeably less ethnic diversity than their similarly-sized peers in other provinces.

Compared to the US dot maps, Canadian cities are defined more by a white city/Asian suburb dynamic instead of a Black city/white suburb one. This reflects the different history of urban planning, politics and migration in the two countries. However, as American cities gentrify and suburbs diversify, they will become increasingly like their Canadian counterparts.

To put a quantitative spin on the data, I calculated a diversity score for each dissemination area based on how close it is to having an equal number of residents from the six categories.

The most diverse spot in Canada by this measurement is dissemination area 24660411 in the Montreal borough of St. Michel. It recorded a population of 430 on the census: 120 white, 10 Indigenous, 80 Black, 80 East Asian, 70 South or West Asian and 70 from all other groups, such as Latinos, Pacific Islanders and biracial people.

Meanwhile, seven of the ten least diverse (excluding Indigenous reserves, where non-Indigenous people generally can't live) are in Quebec.

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