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Calgary's population grows by 0.3% in 2016 despite thousands of people leaving the city

Thousands of people moved away from Calgary over the past year but the city's population still grew slightly, thanks to babies being born, according to the results of the 2016 civic census.

Scroll down to find an interactive map showing population change by community

Robson Fletcher · CBC News ·
People are walking in downtown Calgary. No faces can be seen and the Calgary tower is in the background
The number of people living in Calgary grew in 2016 despite the recession, but only slightly, and only thanks to births. Thousands of people moved away from the city, according to the latest civic census. (Evelyne Asselin/CBC)

Thousands of people moved away from Calgary over the past year but the city's population still grew slightly, thanks to babies being born, according to the results of the 2016 civic census.

The total number of people living in Calgary, as measured in April 2016, grew by 4,256 to stand at 1,235,171.

That's an increase of 0.3 per cent from the year before.

The population growth comes despite a negative net migration of 6,527 people.

But the people leaving the city were more than offset by the "natural increase" in population — the excess of births over deaths — which added 10,783 people to Calgary's ranks.

Below is an interactive map depicting Calgary's population change by community in 2016.

The red areas saw population loss; the green areas saw population gain. The darker the colour, the larger the percentage loss or gain.

Zoom in, scroll around, and click on individual communities to see more detailed population information:

* Note: Altadore's population appears to have dropped dramatically because it was partially subdivided into Garrison Woods, but the new community boundaries don't yet appear on city-provided map data used here.

Other notes, directly from the 2016 census document:

  • Housing stock continues to rise with an increase of 6,599 dwelling units, bringing the total number of dwelling units in the city to 499,222, an increase of 1.32%.
  • The number of vacant dwelling units in Calgary is now 20,843, an increase of 8,317 from the 12,526 vacancies in 2015.
  • The overall vacancy rate in the city is 4.3%, up from 2.64% in April 2015.
  • The number of dwellings under construction is 9,508, down 3,490 from 12,998 in 2015.
  • There are now 463,682 occupied dwellings. Of those, 323,536 or 69.78% are owner-occupied. In 2015, the comparable percentage was 69.15%.

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