More information on Locality (LOC)

Censuses:

2006, 2001

Remarks:

Locality names exclude, where possible, the names of current census subdivisions, current designated places and current urban areas.

The primary sources of Statistics Canada's information on the names and spelling of localities are:

1. Places and their verified locations (latitude/longitude coordinates) provided by Elections Canada. These may not reflect the content of Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) files.
2. Names approved by the provincial and territorial names authorities, federally represented by the Geographic Names Board of Canada (GNBC) at NRCan.
3. Names reported for unincorporated places by census representatives during past censuses (see Changes prior to the 2006 current Census).
4. Records showing name changes or dissolutions of former census subdivisions, former designated places and former urban areas.

Localities that have the same name have different locations. Locality names and their representative point coordinates are maintained in a database table. Using their representative point coordinates and a point-in-polygon algorithm, localities can be linked to standard geographic areas. In this way, location information (e.g., census place of work or migration responses) can be coded to the current standard geographic areas, and products such as GeoSuite and GeoSearch (which incorporate information from the locality table) can provide users with greater flexibility in finding their geographic area of interest.

Population and dwelling counts are not provided by locality.

Table 1 in the Introduction shows the number of localities by province and territory.

Refer to the related definitions of designated place (DPL) and place name (PN).

Changes prior to the current census:

Prior to 2001, Statistics Canada defined an unincorporated place (UP)as a cluster of five or more dwellings (i.e., a settlement), locally known by a specific name, but lacking legal limits or local government. UPs were found only in rural areas. Statistics Canada reported population counts only for those UPs identified by census representatives during the census field collection operation. Standard products for UPs were last produced for the 1991 Census. For the 1996 Census, data were collected for UPs, but were compiled only on a cost recovery basis. The UP program was completely discontinued after the 1996 Census. For further details, refer to the definition of unincorporated place (UP) in the 1996 Census Dictionary(Catalogue no. 92-351-UIE, XPE).