Charlottetown area growing quickly, population skewing younger

The population is growing all over P.E.I., according to figures released by Statistics Canada Thursday morning, but the Charlottetown area is by far growing the fastest.

The capital region is also the only part of the province that is getting younger, with the median age dropping from 41.4 to 40 years over the last five years. In other parts of the province the median age is virtually unchanged.

As of July 1, Statistics Canada recorded a population of 159,625 on the Island, broken down as follows: 

• 80,347 people in the Charlottetown region, up from 79,092 a year earlier. 
• 18,042 living in the Summerside region, up from 17,831.
• 61,236 residents in areas outside those two regions, up from 60,339.

The Charlottetown region, as defined by Statistics Canada, takes in a much larger area than what Islanders may think of as Charlottetown, encompassing Cornwall and stretching beyond Stratford to Vernon River, as well as including a chunk of the North Shore.

As of 2019, more than half of Islanders lived in that region. Over the last five years, Charlottetown's population has grown 12.3 per cent.

But other parts of the province are growing as well. 

Summerside grew 6.4 per cent, and the population outside the two city regions grew 4.7 per cent.

P.E.I. remained the fastest-growing province in the country by percentage in 2020, as it has been for some years.

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