In 2022 the Alberta government ran an advertising campaign called "Alberta is Calling" on billboards and transit in Toronto and Vancouver, inviting young workers to move west for cheaper homes and good jobs. Many did. Alberta had the largest net gain from interprovincial migration for twelve quarters in a row up to mid-2025, while Ontario had the largest net loss for fifteen quarters in a row (Statistics Canada). People do not only move to Canada; they also move within it, and those moves, added up over decades, explain the map of where Canadians live.
Moving within Canada
| Type of internal migration | What it means | Recent Canadian pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Interprovincial | Moving from one province or territory to another | Net gains for Alberta and, in the early 2020s, the Maritime provinces; net losses for Ontario and, at times, British Columbia |
| Rural to urban | Moving from the countryside and small towns to cities | A long-term trend: the share of Canadians in rural areas has fallen at every census since the 1970s |
| Urban to suburban and exurban | Moving from city centres to suburbs or to towns beyond them | Families leaving Toronto and Vancouver for cheaper homes in surrounding towns, sometimes far beyond the city |
| Return migration | Moving back to the home province or community | People returning to Atlantic Canada or the North after working elsewhere |
| Seasonal or temporary | Moving for part of the year or for a job | Fly-in, fly-out workers at mines and oil sands sites; seasonal farm workers |
The push and pull factors from the last lesson work inside Canada too. Housing costs push people out of the Toronto and Vancouver areas; lower costs and jobs pull them to Alberta and Saskatchewan. During the pandemic, remote work let some people keep city jobs while moving to smaller places, and from 2016 to 2021 the Maritime provinces (+4.7%) grew faster than the Prairie provinces for the first time since the 1940s, while Newfoundland and Labrador was the only province to lose population (−1.8%). Young people often move from rural areas and small towns to cities for college, university and work, which is one reason many rural communities are older than average (Lesson 2).
Where Canadians live: the ecumene
Geographers call the permanently inhabited part of a country its ecumene. Canada's ecumene is a thin ribbon along the southern edge. In the 2016 census, two out of three Canadians (66%) lived within 100 km of the Canada–US border, an area that makes up only about 4 percent of Canada's territory, and the three territories together held just over 0.3 percent of the population (Statistics Canada). The busiest stretch is the Windsor–Quebec City corridor along the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, home to roughly half of all Canadians and to Toronto, Montréal and Ottawa–Gatineau. You saw the physical reasons in Unit 2: mild climate, fertile lowland soils and easy water routes. The table below adds the human reasons.
| Factor | How it affects settlement | Canadian example |
|---|---|---|
| Climate | Milder climates with longer growing seasons attract more people | The south of Canada has the warmest summers and shortest winters |
| Landforms and soils | Flat land with fertile soil supports farming and is easier to build on | The Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Lowlands vs the rocky Canadian Shield |
| Water | Lakes, rivers and coasts provide drinking water, transportation and trade | Montréal on the St. Lawrence; Vancouver's harbour |
| Resources | Jobs in mining, forestry, energy or fishing create towns, sometimes in remote places | Fort McMurray (oil sands), Sudbury (nickel), Labrador City (iron) |
| Transportation and history | Settlement followed fur trade routes, canals and railways; older cities had a head start | Prairie towns spaced along the Canadian Pacific Railway |
| Jobs, services and connections | Cities attract people because jobs, universities, hospitals and family networks are already there | Most newcomers settle in Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver |
| Government policy | Laws and treaties decided who could settle where | The Dominion Lands Act gave homesteads to settlers on the Prairies; the reserve system confined many First Nations to small areas |
An urban country
Canada is one of the most urbanized countries in the world. A census metropolitan area (CMA) is a city and its surrounding communities with a total population of at least 100 000, at least 50 000 of whom live in the core. In the 2021 census, close to 27.3 million people, nearly three in four Canadians, lived in one of 41 CMAs, while the share living in rural areas fell for the ninth census in a row, to 17.8 percent (Statistics Canada). Six CMAs had over a million people each, and together they held nearly half of Canada's population.
| CMA (2021 rank) | Population, 2021 census | Province |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Toronto | 6 202 225 | Ontario |
| 2. Montréal | 4 291 732 | Quebec |
| 3. Vancouver | 2 642 825 | British Columbia |
| 4. Ottawa–Gatineau | 1 488 307 | Ontario and Quebec |
| 5. Calgary | 1 481 806 | Alberta |
| 6. Edmonton | 1 418 118 | Alberta |
Northern and Indigenous communities
Outside the ecumene, settlements are small and far apart. Many northern communities have no road connection and depend on air travel, winter roads or a summer sea lift for food, fuel and building materials, which makes everything expensive. Inuit have lived in the Arctic for thousands of years, and in 2021 about 69 percent of Inuit lived in Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit homeland that includes Nunavut, Nunavik (northern Quebec), Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador) and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (the western Arctic, mostly in the Northwest Territories). The locations of many First Nations reserves reflect treaties, the Indian Act and government decisions, not the communities' own choice of the best land. In 2021, about 41 percent of First Nations people with registered Indian status lived on reserve, and about 801 000 Indigenous people, over 40 percent of the Indigenous population, lived in large urban centres such as Winnipeg, Edmonton and Toronto (Statistics Canada).