Edit: A typo on the Saskatoon and Regina population number. Here are the correct numbers: Saskatoon: 266,141 (2021 census) Regina: 226,404 (2021 census) Just to be clear, I’m not arguing for, or against using a specific metric to measure city size. Both city proper and city metro area population metrics have their place in Geography. I’m just looking at populations in certain city boundaries that surprised me.
Edmonton has hot summers??? You said “surprisingly hot summers”. The only reason it’s ‘surprising’ is because you’d be surprised to find it has any heat in Edmonton during the summer! The coldest winter I’ve ever spent was that one summer in Edmonton.
@@hillbillydeluxe27 I'm from Edmonton. It's routine to hit 36c on the humidex in Summer now. I'm a 4th generation Albertan and the climate had gotten much more extreme as of late. Hotter hot's and colder colds...
Great video. My thesis is that wherever affordable mass market housing is being marketed and built people will go. Hence why Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa are doing well comparatively speaking to the Vancouver's, Toronto's and Montreal's where being priced out of the market is increasingly becoming commonplace. If these cities want to keep adding people they will need to make affordable housing their #1 issue one way or another.
Despite Edmonton being so far north, what a lot of people dont know is that Edmonton experiences milder winters than Winnipeg, which is much further south
Edmonton is drier though. Manitoba is a humid cold. I'm albertan. It's a bit different. I remember it getting to 55 when handing out resumes and it felt like -35 in Winnipeg lol
100% The Rocky Mountain's shadow effect has advantages and disadvantages.. In this case the dry cold helps. An Albertan -25c is much warmer feeling than an Ottawa -05c. Believe me.
@@Urban_Atlas According to Wikipedia, only 9 US cities are over 1 million. With the population of the US being what it is, I would have thought it was more.
@@Urban_Atlas US city population is limited by suburban development. You simply can't get huge massive city populations when you build cities where most of the land is occupied by low density, single family dwellings, in car dependent locations. Even cities like Boston have a small dense urban core, surrounded by sprawling suburban development. The metro area is something like 5 million, but only 9% live in the city proper (which also includes lower density areas). And Boston is one of the least 'sprawling' areas in the US...
Most of those cities never had any amalgamation and the central city and surrounding cities have small boundaries.. how these city boundaries were drawn up varies by State and the time of settlement and growth...
I live in Edmonton, and the climate here is actually better than Winnipeg. Winter is very sunny and fairly dry. We tend to not get the huge dumps of snow Calgary gets, as they're closer to the mountains. But they are also at a higher altitude, and can get bitterly cold. But they also get a much stronger chinook. Summers in Edmonton are generally supposed to be fairly wet. We normally get 2 or 3 thunderstorms a week throughout summer, but the last few years have been incredibly dry. That is not normal. In the last 4 years, summers have also been getting far more days above 30 degrees. This past summer, after I spent 2 weeks in Tokyo where it was averaging 37-38 degrees with high humidity, we returned to Edmonton to very similar temperatures, but drier. But it did not feel cooler because of the intensity of the sun. But I would say that summer is absolutely beautiful here, and with the amount of greenspace in the city, the outdoors are very busy. My wife is from Japan, and she has come to love Edmonton. Why? Because it is a comfortable city to live in, has great access to Japanese food (among other ethnic foods), great festivals, a growing train system (she's from Japan, I lived there for 11 years, and we love being able to get around by train), amazing outdoor activities, and it's not boring. So many people who don't live in Edmonton think it's boring, but there's actually a lot going on.
I share a similar experience, my wife is actually from Edmonton, so I have visited Edmonton several times in the last few years. To be honest, during my first visit I was pleasantly surprised! Great outdoor spaces, LRT system, Housing was reasonable, food options were good. Only thing I did not like was how sprawling parts of the city felt. In the summers, it was 35 degrees, but it felt much better than the 30 degrees in Hamilton where I live. Edmonton was much more comfortable, whereas southern Ontario is incredibly muggy! Overall, I personally wouldn't mind living in Edmonton myself. Thanks for your comment! Love reading first hand experiences like this :)!
@@Urban_Atlas Yeah, it rarely gets muggy here. The LRT system is growing, now building out to West Edmonton Mall. I actually live in one of the sprawling parts of the city, but we have good connections to get to other areas.
@@frankmerrill2366 Mid 30s is fairly normal in summer. Just to the north of Tokyo, in Saitama, it regularly gets up to 38 or 39 in summer, and is one of the hottest parts of the country.
@@JayDeeMC Wow, that's crazy. I note it's a similar latitude to Louisville KY here, which is far enough north, and close to the water, that I wouldn't expect that.
Gaming with an American from Texas, who was shocked I hadn't heard of his hometown of like 50,000 people but had never heard of Edmonton, home to a million.... shock.
Ottawa is also a regional municipality with extensive rural area. It is larger by area than the country of Luxembourg. The cities that surprised me while travelling on business were Saskatoon and London, ON. The city of Gatineau across the river from Ottawa is also surprisingly large.
In light of threats to our dollar and economy overall, I would love to see Canada become more self-sufficient w.r.t. manufacturing, agriculture, etc. For instance, we could grow more food year-round if massive investments were made in greenhouse construction. I know, it would be expensive, but then again, buying veggies from California and Florida is expensive too, if your dollar is tanking relative to the US dollar. We have a sufficient population to do it, if governments got out of the way, stopped being so greedy, and let the entrepreneurial spirit go.
I have lived in Edmonton for 99% of my life. The entire metropolitan area of Edmonton is about 1.6 million people. Edmonton alone has about slightly over 1.1 million people
The Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge/Guelph urban aglomeration is the better part of 1 million at this point and growing. Great area and only getting bigger and better
Yea thats a good one aswell. Being from Southern Ontario, seen it grow rapidly in the last 20 years or so! Always thought Waterloo was a great place to live.
So true! My wWife and I moved to Guelph from downtown Toronto some time ago. I studied at the U of G in the eighties. Guelph has grown a lot but retains so much of its special charm and has grown in more thoughtful ways than so many N. American cities. KW is seeing so many interesting things happening and is getting more and more interesting from an urbanist perspective. Cambridge's cores are really cool and starting to see some revival - but that sprawl... something's gotta give there. I'm hopeful, though. This is a wonderful region.
I love how these four cities have always been so connected and similar but there’s never really been a strong name for describing them together 😂 I’ve heard “tri-cities” be used but that’s more so describing the Waterloo region with Guelph implied every now and then. “GCKW” is the most we’ve gotten and even then the order is always changed around in the acronym
@jimjimmers8571 Approximately 10km is all that seperates the edge of Guelph from the edge of K.W at this point...crazy! Growing up in Guelph in the late 80's (pop 60k-ish) we hardly ever went to Kitchener or really even thought about it as a destination...seemed far away actually. They may actually merge in my lifetime at their fringes. Kitchener now has quite a bit going on...Waterloo is truly ugly as sin with all the hopeless student highrises and sprawl but also quite a happening place depending on what you are into (compared to how it was in the past at least). All in all a great place to live and a very free place to grow up. I lived in Elora too for a while and Elora and Fergus also have a distinct SW ontario feel and charm that has only blossomed with steady growth. Brantford, though.....ugggh. still a depressing mess unfortunately.
Not Canadian but still surprised how big Edmonton turns out to be. Made me think of East Texas with the energy economy, right down to the sister cities.
Alberta's large cities don't really have suburbs. in the early 1960s the Alberta government amalgamated Calgary and Edmonton's suburbs into the respective main cities. British Columbia hasn't done this but instead has created a level of government above the cities and their suburbs called regional districts. I don't think it works very well.
Ali - you are so right about biases and relativity. I have lived in Vancouver for over 35 years and marvel today (and not often in a good way) about the extent of the Greater Vancouver Area's built environment; its now feeling quite huge and somewhat overpopulated (based on the geographical contingencies which are determining factors in its growth. As for Vancouver proper, it has recently been superseded in population by our own 'Mississauga West' - the suburb of Surrey.
Halifax should’ve been included. It’s probably the city with the biggest gap between its actual population and how others perceive it. Cities like Mississauga are expected to be big (for the most part), but most people outside Atlantic Canada genuinely believe Halifax is a quaint fishing village. Obviously it’s no Toronto or Ottawa, but for being so isolated from any other big cities, it seems huge.
Doesn't Halifax have four hundred thousand people in an area ten times the size of Toronto? I'm sure it's a nice place, but that sounds pretty small to me.
@@lost_porkchop The HRM has around 525,000 as of 2024. Like I said, I know that’s very small compared to other cities but in the context of the region it’s a big city. Just like how you could say Ottawa’s a big city, but then compared to NY, LA, Mexico City, São Paulo, it’s like a little village.
I'm from outside of Atlantic Canada. Southern Ontario. I was actually suprised at how non-metropolitan and "small" Halifax is because it kinda holds the place as the urban centre of the Maritimes. And it's population is significant. But it's both very spread out and so very isolated from other urban centers that it maintains a much smaller urban footprint than comparable cities of its size. Just my experience.
I’m from Winnipeg and I just realized that Winnipeg is kinda large actually. Sure I’m very familiar with the city to the point where it feels a bit small but I just realized that Winnipeg has more people than the entirety of North Dakota
This has got to me one of my favourite and close to my hear videos! I am from Edmonton and I was there when the population was nowhere close to 1 million, it has grown so much since the oil and sands and then again now with people from Ontario moving there due to unachievable housing prices.
Ottawa's size is misleading because Ottawa was amalgamated with 11 regional municipalities including Gloucester, Nepean, Orleans and Kanata which were each about the same size as the old Ottawa in population.
When amalgamation happened in Ontario the population shot up in several cities. Hamilton had a steady population of around 300,000 for years. With amalgamation, it's now 600,000 (for the city proper) and 800,000 for the metro area.
I've only been to Ottawa once for work with a coworker. As we drove in, we saw the sign, and my coworker asked "where is it?". There was like nothing but forest 😂
Ha. I grew up in Surrey and it is surprising every time I go there. New buildings, sure, but new roads, intersections, neighbourhoods, and traffic. It’s weird to see pockets that align with my memories that have no recognizable elements around them because there’s new development all around it. Surreal.
I am a simple man. And a Canadian. And an Edmontonian. Which I've been now since 1998. I see a video about Canadian cities being larger than "I" (i.e. non-Canadians) would've thought, with the video's thumbnail being a satellite image of a remarkably familiar-looking region, and I click. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I should probably mention, though, that I've often suspected that people outside of Canada, and maybe even Canadians outside of Alberta, would be surprised to learn that Edmonton is home to so many people. I think most Americans just know of it as the home of the Edmonton Oilers, and the site of a large mall.)
I was surprised by Saskatoon when I drove through there a few years ago. It's smaller than the cities mentioned in the video, but considering its location it was very impressive.
@@cavetroll666 awesome! I worked at City of Mississauga as an intern in their planning department LOL. Transportation Demand Management and Transportation Planning!
As an Edmontonian and 4th generation Albertan I am never surprised by our population numbers. OTHERS are but I'm not. Even visiting Washington or Oregon will make any Albertan feel like an alien because they don't know where that is or how many people live there despite being about 12 hours away by car. For the record, Alberta will add its 5th million resident in the next few months according to last estimates... What did surprise me is the trend towards secondary centres or edge cities which is a far more common American concept than what we see here. But Surrey and Mississauga are proving to become quite the alternative urban hubs almost outshining their OG nearby rivals. Kudos.
Always love reading your comments brother! You always have great insights. For me Surrey is probably the biggest surprise, almost unheard of that a secondary city (suburb city) starts to approach the primary city in the metro area and will even surpass it soon. Perhaps, Surrey will become the primary city ? Its dependent on Surrey City Council and planning how they control the growth and designate land uses and potentially even provide incentives for corporations to relocate? It's a fascinating situation and probably the first of its kind in Canada.
@@Urban_Atlas As someone who hasn't been to B.C it completely surprised me when I learned that about Surrey, I suppose it has none of the institutional and cultural weight needed but the fact that its population will be bigger without being the namesake of the metro is insane to me. As for Edmonton, well I'm partial to Calgary so it was always funny to me that it's bigger than the capital. I understand your argument for the surprise factor though.
Looking to move to Edmonton either summer of 2025 or 2026 (CAF member won't know until I talk to the career manager at the end of January) I'm not bothered by the weather I already lived in Grande Prairie and Yellowknife.
It's a city of crime and criminals now. Public transportation is dangerous as hell. Homelessness is outrageous. I had a friend from gta and another from Florida who lived in 38 states over 44 years and they both said they've never seen such a demonic place in their lives
@@DJansen-z5e That's true of every large major North American city thanks to devastating budget cuts to social welfare programs that keeps vulnerable people from tipping into drug addiction and homelessness. Alas you'd rather just be a sour face complainer than actually look to see what's causing the problem. Typical...
You made mention of Halifax. I’m from the east coast and it doesn’t surprise me on its size, people I talk to in the prairies(where I’ve lived for the last 20 years) are shocked to find out its population is almost half a million. Honourable mention to Quebec City (560k). Seems to fade away because Montreal is far more well known.
you hinted at edmontons value to the north but could have gone deeper into albertas/edmontons value for supply to the NWT .. and maybe saskatoon should have been mentioned as it is growing as well and its value to northern saskatchewan minerals/resources
As someone from Prince George can confirm the main reason we’re so big is that PG is the hub for northern BC the railways to Vancouver prince Rupert and Alberta come through here in the past it was a hub for steamboats since its on the confluence of the Fraser and nachako rivers our hospital is the only one in the north with more advanced equipment and is a center for forestry This does create an odd geography in that we look smacked dab in the middle of nowhere and any major cities (Kamloops, Kelowna, Vancouver area) are all hours away
Prince George had a city proper population in the 90k range in the nineties, that has gone down. Over 800 mills have been shut down in Western Canada over the last thirty-years, which has had an impact. Nevertheless the city is as mentioned by others, a shopping and services hub, and highway/railway hub.
@@geographyinaction7814 that’s definitely true it’s gone down from 80000 even in my life time but it’s still deceptively big because you wouldn’t guess from looking at it on a map that it would be that big
Yup I was going to say Sudbury too - unlike some of these that were mentioned, Sudbury is all by itself in the middle of nowhere and is surprisingly large!
The city that surprised me was Anchorage. Blew me away that it has more than 300,000. A city that you can’t even drive to! But also surprised me that it’s at a similar latitude as Helsinki, Stockholm and Oslo.
It is very surprising, especially given its isolation! However it has played a vital role through its airport (stopover point between flights from Asia to the US). You can actually drive to it from Canada!
RE: Ottawa- Gatineau is an integral part of Ottawa and that would elevate the population numbers close to 1.5 million (the CMA has two portions, ON and QC)
I live in London. We are broaching 500k in the city proper and the CMA is coming up on 600k. Most people outside of the country have never even heard of it and are often absolutely floored when I tell them how big of a city it is.
I think Manaus in Brazil is probably one of the most fascinating cities considering where it's located, it has no direct connections to the rest of Brazil and it's still one of the biggest cities in Brazil, also the biggest in the amazon region
Not a complaint, just something I'll point out as someone who lives in Surrey. The footage there and overview on Google Maps is inaccurate for the what is now "Downtown Surrey" or "City Centre." It shows maybe 10-12 High rises. We actually have close to 20+ with more being built all the time. Check back in a year and there will be triple what it shows, maybe quadruple.
As an Albertan, Edmonton's population was never that surprising to me because I always saw it for the reasons illustrated in the video. Could Lethbridge be considered part of that corridor given its status as a transportation hub?
My take away is that it's hard to compare Canadian and American cities by population as many American cities have much larger CMA populations relative to the well known city within that CMA.
Honestly to me a suburb of another city can not be a city on it's own. To me a city is a continuous metro area, anything else is a neighborhood of a city.
Good video. I've got some nitpicks though... I'd say Milton is southwest of Mississauga, and Oakville is south of Mississauga. Rather than as you described in the video. I think some other cities like Halifax could've gotten onto this list, however. Most cities you've mentioned seem oddly populous at first, but you could probably think of some reasons as to why they're so big even without being a huge geography nerd (e.g. Mississauga/Surrey being in the metropolitan areas of 2 of Canada's biggest and most well-known cities, and Edmonton being economically prosperous/important). Most don't expect any Atlantic Canadian cities to be more than just "city" in name. And I think there's some issues with how you clipped your mic audio to fit the video, it seems like you're clipping the end off your mic audio too soon. It might seem like I'm being overly critical, but I'm merely sharing my feedback, I'm not trying to hurt or insult. Good video as a whole, though.
@@DLBBALL no you didn’t, I don’t mind constructive criticism, I’m new to TH-cam and still learning slowly, and suggestions are appreciated. As long as it’s not anything rude or personal towards me it’s all good!
@@ALuimes What should it be then? That Milton is WSW and Oakville is SW of Sauga? At the very least, I wouldn't say Milton is NW of the city as said in the video.
Surrey is good example of why home prices in BC are so high. Just looking at your video presenting city from the drone it's easy to spot main problem. It's basically full of single-family homes (detached houses). I'm from Poland and here in most cities the basic standard are 4-5 storey blocks, then 10-11 storey blocks, and even taller ones. There of course also are areas in outskirts of cities which has detached houses but probably if compare the most cities have 80-85% of land covered by blocks, and rest are homes.
Great observation, that is a major problem in many Canadian cities, the over abundance of single family homes and limited amount of what we call The “missing middle” type Housing. That being medium density 4-5 story condos or apartments.
It’s expected that within the next 2-5 years, Surrey will actually surpass Vancouver by population as it has larger land area with lots of it still undeveloped, while Vancouver is surrounded by other cities and has nowhere to build but up (or annex nearby cities.) I predict, that the entire metropolitan area is doomed to have a population collapse in the next 15 years or so, when housing gets too expensive and the cities become too crammed and there’s no more room to grow (Already neighborhoods have been scaling the mountains).
I think we should rename Lotusland officially as the Greater SURREY Regional District as it's soon to be the largest city in the Lower Mainland.. And it will soon have the tallest tower too if that approved project gets shovels in the ground. Seriously though it goes to show you how affordable housing is the largest driver of population growth these days hence why the second tier Canadian large cities and markets are doing so well... Aka Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa. I suspect Hamilton, Winnipeg and Quebec City will soon join this list because again the affordability and quality of life compared to the cost of living. I think a lot more people would rather be "Hot in Cleveland" these days than struggling to survive the unliveable conditions of your Toronto's, New York's, Vancouver's and Los Angeles' so to speak...
Old core cities will always feel like the most important to me even if a suburb surpasses them in population due to urban geography and history. For instance, the Skytrain network is concentrated in Vancouver and always will be.
By population for sure they are large especially Mississauga and Surrey, but on the other side, both of the municipalities are large in land sizes and flat (most of it) which make it easy to crate a relatively affordable housing market compare to the Core City like Vancouver and Toronto. Keep it up my fellow planner, waves from BC.
This is one of my favorite urban atlas video, always love learning about our cities, in thr flip side some ofnthe comparison cities you show could be another video called cities that are surprisingly small!
As an American, I'm surprised not seeing Brampton among the four cities. Gotta say that Ottawa caught me a little off-guard, though, and I was there only eight weeks ago. But, if you're showcasing four cities, there's only room for four - that's how that works, lol. Missisauga, though, was the very first one that came to my mind before I "looked".
Interesting video. I never really think about places like Mississauga and Surrey, when I think of Canadian cities. It's their metro center that usually gets most of the focus. As an idea for another unique video on cities, I've always been curious about how cities act as a 'region of influence', based on industry. For example, Vancouver is debatably the hub for lumber exports.. so what territory does it cover as the dominant industry, and where is the border where oil becomes the dominant industry in and around Alberta? Ie, for cities over 500K, if you created a map of their borders as if all the farmland were part of that city's metro, up until it touched the border of the next industry-type, you'd have a super metro population, in a sense of all cities. If you wanted to categorize oil on the map, too, you'd probably have to split up Edmonton with northern influence, and Calgary with southern influence. Perhaps that influence reaches part-way into Saskatchewan, but does it include Regina and Saskatoon, or is wheat the dominant industry in Sask? The prairies would probably be dominated by Winnipeg, with the wheat industry, of course, but Winnipeg also is the nearest metro area to most of northern Ontario too, so one could argue Winnipeg's influence stretches as far as Thunder Bay, where the wheat gets shipped to Europe. The east coast would be dominated by Halifax, with fisheries, and so on. Now, if you consider the industrial influences by region, I'd be curious what region has the biggest population. Edmonton and Winnipeg, for example, might be larger economic hubs than their census data indicates. Maybe Toronto isn't as dominant as we think it is, and thus perhaps we should re-think which zones get budgeted the most money, as a result.
That is an excellent idea, but one that may be difficult to execute and analyze. Could be done using GIS Tools but would probably require a significant amount of research! But, I like the way you think, this would actually be great topic for a potential Thesis paper! Thank for you the insights!
Grande Prairie is also a regional hub for the Peace Region. Grande Prairie is a "Get it Done Yesterday" city and is home to a lot of millionaires, as is Bonnyville. A major regret I have is that I did not, when young, tap into the job market that made Alberta a magnificent economic engine.
May I ask where you got your population stats for Regina and Saskatoon? I was under the impression they were both approaching 250,000. The 2021 census has Regina at 226,404.
You are correct there is a typo regarding the Saskatoon and Regina population numbers. However, Surrey is still larger than both combined. I have pinned the correct numbers from the 2021 census.
Ok but I gotta say though... Watching Mississauga on google earth was something else.. What a hellscape! It's horrendous! Just a sea of cul-de-sacs with single family homes, industries and parking lots... Watching Edmonton after made it look like an urban paradise hahahah
Interesting! I can understand Surrey's growth, given the west coast climate; not so clear on why Edmonton has grown instead of Calgary? Any thoughts on this?
Calgary has grown as well! But for me Edmonton was more surprising, Calgary has a more favourable climate I think, a more robust and now diversified economy. It’s closer to the US and the gateway the Rockies (Banff, Yoho). Thus Calgary’s growth was more expected so to speak. Edmonton caught be off guard both when I visited and when I researched the population numbers!
Thanks to Eastern Canadian cities restructuring/amalgamation that happened in late 1990s, many of the main urban hubs has amalgamated with surrounding cities, towns and farmlands to make 1 large city. This happened to Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Gatineau, Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax, etc (although some former cities in Quebec voted to demerge) - and thus see a jump in their population growth.
I noticed a number of Chicoutimi signs when I was up in Saguenay in the middle of November. Is that a case of the former city embracing its identity as (now) a neighborhood, or did they demerge?
One reason Mississagua is still independent is because that city fought tooth and nail to NOT be part of the Greater Toronto Amalgamation back then. And because they have Pearson Airport, Mississagua had enough power to make that stick. If that city's leadership had given in to the amalgamation back then, we would need a new 4th city for this video.
@@frankmerrill2366 Yeah, I think they're all part of Saguenay now, but because Saguenay is so big, they may have just left the neighborhood signs up so you'll know which part of Saguenay you're in. They do the same thing in Levis with the neighborhood in parenthesis (like Charny or St. Romuald).
@@Taeolas Actually, Mississauga was never meant to be part of that amalgamation as it only involved Metro Toronto. Mississauga was in Peel. And if it had been, Mike Harris would've forcefully included it.
@@ronansanjuan Actually one of the Chicoutimi signs that I saw, was on a fully-electronic advertising sign (much smaller than a billboard, with a rotation of eight or nine screens) downtown, so it was "current" and not an old city/neighborhood sign. Something about an upcoming observance if my memory is accurate. I was there at night, but it looked like a very delightful place. I didn't realize Levis is also an amalgamation. I don't speak French, but I remember their AM radio station (920, I think it wasx CFLS?) was the best Top 40 station in Quebec City when I drove through in 1984. When I visited Cambridge, Ontario years ago (in a rather ineffective effort to trace some of my roots, because I really don't know how to do it, lol), I don't remember seeing mentions of Galt, etc. there. But I did see a couple businesses that retained the former names, which I forget, but similar to my hypothetical examples like Galt Lumber, Preston Optical... I wish all these places weren't "in a foreign country" - this would be such a great time to be Canadian, though I'm seeing some troubling signs north of me too. Thousands of times (since at least 1978-9) I've wished I'd been born Canadian...
I think that Canadian cities with NHL teams like Ottawa and Edmonton; the fact that they have notable populations isn't surprising at all. Now Surrey and to a lesser extent Mississauga are surprising
@Urban_Atlas no I actually mean the city. The last estimate by council was 289k a couple of years ago, and I believe that was underestimating then. The GSA is over 300k as well, though.
I went to Saskatoon for first the first time last summer. I didn't see any suburbs outside of the city . It basically went from urban to farmland. Is there different urban communities touching the urban part of Saskatoon? @@brizybutterfly
@eddienazar-qd1pi it depends on what highway you take. The city of Martinsville shares a border with saskatoon to the north, the town of Pike Lake shares one to the west, CFB Dundurn, and the town of Dundurn to the south, for instance.
@@brizybutterfly I loved the small towns like Rosetown ElRose and the Lake near Kyle where I stayed. The Lake life was a blast. The town of Kyle had a Rodeo with a barn dance with live music 🎶. What a great experience. I loved Saskatchewan.
As a Vancouverite, I knew you would pick Surrey. The city proper covers a huge area including the hills where most people live on and the farmlands all the way to the southern border. However, the growth of the city is not without drawbacks. Like most Canadian cities, Surrey is a car-centric suburban hell with wide residential streets and huge lots for huge homes. Many cul-de-sacs within the half-mile city blocks makes walking to bus routes awkward and discouraged. The city has a reputation of attracting crime and gangs due to proximity with the border and lax surveillance in the farmlands. Now, they can get away with taller glass and concrete condos without a height restriction like Vancouver does because of Coast Mountains NIMBYism. The SkyTrain is finally expanding further along the Fraser Highway. Surrey shares the same problems with Vancouver by proximity but a few things have gotten better over the decades.
Interesting! thank you for leaving this comment, I truly enjoy reading the opinions, experiences and first-hand knowledge from a local perspective! I have yet to visit Surrey, even though I have been to Vancouver several times. I did notice the fact the away from downtown Vancouver the buildings are taller which makes sense due to Van's height restrictions. I would be interested in looking into Surrey crime statistics. Surrey's growth probably surprised me the most, eventually it will surpass Vancouver. Will Vancouver one day be part of the greater Surrey area LOL? Thank you for your insights :)!
@@Urban_Atlas Thanks for response! Surrey has a significant chunk of industrial jobs in Metro Vancouver, they're building new industrial parks over old pasture lands in the south. Growth will be limited to be near transportation hubs because single-family detached is dominant. Most retail still relies on parking lot paradise, outside of Vancouver proper there is a Walmart for every 100000 citizens. Since the legalization of marijuana, the drug cartel has died down a lot along with the gun trade.
Surrey doesn't border Burnaby at all. It borders New Westminster to the northwest, connected my a number of bridges, too. Lets' not forget whom it borders to the south, as well - White Rock and Blaine, Washington.
@@Urban_Atlas Sorry, didn't want to be that guy. Great video otherwise! Living in the Vancouver area I know that it's only a short while until Surrey will outgrow Vancouver proper, but I didn't realize just how populous it already was!
Love your content keep up the great work. Surrey (whose population is projected to surpass that of Vancouver city) has the ambition to be its own metropolitan area - combining with the other cities south of the Fraser - and thus avoiding the high tax download from Vancouver (which has four times the debt of Surrey).
Perhaps you could explain whatever quirk in provincial law it is that allows Calgary to gobble up every community within 50 miles of the downtown core, vs. Edmonton which has about 300,000 people living in bedroom communities within a 40 minute drive of the downtown core. This discrepancy in measurement gives Calgary a false advantage when it comes to allotment of both Provincial and Federal funding. If Calgary claims a population of nearly 1.5 mil, Edmonton can certainly claim to have 1.4 mil within a reasonable commute.
Calgary metro area covers less than half the area of Edmonton. Calgary metro is 1.7 million in 2024 and Edmonton 1.5 million. Okotoks, which is 5 minutes south of Calgary isn't included in the metro population. Gibbons is close to an hour from Edmonton and is included in the metro area. The numbers are skewed to be sure, but not in Calgary's favour.
I've long noticed that Canada is different from the US in that many US cities are surrounded by a large collection of small suburbs while that is rarely the case in Canada. In Canada we either have a central city that covers most of the metro area leaving no (or few) separate suburbs at all, or there are a small number of very large suburbs. You can see the single city model in Calgary, Alberta, Winnipeg, and Halifax, while you can see the few large suburbs model in Toronto and Vancouver. Montreal is a slight exception but even its suburbs are fewer and larger than you'd typically see in the US.
Edmonton is surrounded by a very large cluster of smaller cities. Ft. Saskatchewan, Leduc, Nisku, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Sherwood Park (which is a hamlet, organizationally speaking). Calgary is more or less standalone huge. I was amazed, driving through Calgary last summer, how huge that city is.
Mississauga also has a great waterfront. I worked there for years and originally hated it... Horrible traffic, huge Bleak industrial areas, etc)... but ended up liking the older less built up parts, the waterfront, and the parks. Not for me but I can see why people live there.
I dont think anyone is surprised by Edmonton or ottawa since theyre major Canadian cities. Id say any city without a pro sports team over 400k would be surprisingly large.
I don't blame you for not knowing that Ottawa has 1m+ people, some members of the city council seem to think that there are less than 50k people in Ottawa (or at least they act like that's what they think)
Excellent information as usual. On another note.. The most desirable city in Canada is Penticton. Climate, location, and recreation contribute to its success.
I could do Penticton. It is one of the few places in Canada where you can get some nice weather in the winter without having to go to the USA or Mexico.
Bro this said nothing, "suburbs of big cities are actually small cities" and "small cities with huge boundaries capture the whole metro population" are not surprises.
Personally, I find city proper populations (and comparisons based on them) kind of pointless. Metropolitan populations reflect how cities actually work in real life. So when you started off by stating that the list was based on city proper populations, I kind of tuned out and didn't finish watching.
That’s a fair criticism, my plan was to compare city propers, and do a follow Up video comparing metro populations. Just to get a better chance to explore both metrics.
@watson956 I know he's not using Metro numbers, but the whole video feels useless. He's talking about Mississauga and Surrey as surprisingly large... They're just extended Toronto and Vancouver. He's referencing cities that were founded in the 90s and 60s as suburbs of major cities and acting like they're separate places.
In the same way New York City absorbed its big next-door neighbour Brooklyn in 1898, one wonders if eventually Vancouver absorbs Surrey or Toronto absorbs Mississauga.
Toronto absorbing Mississauga would be politically problematic as the latter is in a different upper-tier region (county). Toronto already absorbed its suburbs that were in its former "political" metro area; Metropolitan Toronto. Greater Vancouver is all contained in the GVRD.
@@ALuimes Well, the "municipalities" law is not carved in stone, and if at some point the provincial assembly or Parliament passed some bill mandating it, it would happen.
The main takeaway is that the majority of US Cities are actually an agglomeration of several medium or small sized cities whereas, the majority of Canadian cities are mainly just the city “proper”, the only major exceptions being Toronto and Vancouver.
Yeah I live 2 hours from Ottawa and the sign used to be past Kanata but now the sign is an hour outside of Ottawa. It makes no sense. Ottawa/Hull counts, sure. We are bilingual for a reason.
We can not compare cities like this bro. C’mon. Suburbs are suburbs, and délimitations are just for administration. Any city in Canada our USA have the Same fckg rules. As Read above. For example Ottawa has joined all rural areas for administration pumping it up. Bad title for this post. Métro areas, are the only way to compare in urbanism.
Edit: A typo on the Saskatoon and Regina population number. Here are the correct numbers:
Saskatoon: 266,141 (2021 census)
Regina: 226,404 (2021 census)
Just to be clear, I’m not arguing for, or against using a specific metric to measure city size. Both city proper and city metro area population metrics have their place in Geography. I’m just looking at populations in certain city boundaries that surprised me.
No need to explain this to the Trolls! Great video once again!
Edmonton has hot summers??? You said “surprisingly hot summers”. The only reason it’s ‘surprising’ is because you’d be surprised to find it has any heat in Edmonton during the summer! The coldest winter I’ve ever spent was that one summer in Edmonton.
@@bhangg_high thanks brother, appreciate you!
@@hillbillydeluxe27 I'm from Edmonton. It's routine to hit 36c on the humidex in Summer now. I'm a 4th generation Albertan and the climate had gotten much more extreme as of late. Hotter hot's and colder colds...
Great video. My thesis is that wherever affordable mass market housing is being marketed and built people will go. Hence why Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa are doing well comparatively speaking to the Vancouver's, Toronto's and Montreal's where being priced out of the market is increasingly becoming commonplace. If these cities want to keep adding people they will need to make affordable housing their #1 issue one way or another.
Despite Edmonton being so far north, what a lot of people dont know is that Edmonton experiences milder winters than Winnipeg, which is much further south
Edmonton is drier though. Manitoba is a humid cold. I'm albertan. It's a bit different. I remember it getting to 55 when handing out resumes and it felt like -35 in Winnipeg lol
100% The Rocky Mountain's shadow effect has advantages and disadvantages.. In this case the dry cold helps. An Albertan -25c is much warmer feeling than an Ottawa -05c. Believe me.
Winter temps in Vancouver stay above freezing, but with 100% humidity, it feels chillier.
@@stickynorth Meanwhile, the Hudson Bay isn't doing any favours for the climates of places to the east, at the same latitudes...
Not by much. Chinooks hit often from Pincher Creek to Calgary, and rarely reach farther north than Red Deer
I'm actually often surprised that so many well-known US cities like San Francisco, Boston and Seattle are under one million.
Yea surprisingly, the majority of their metro populations are actually outside the city proper.
@@Urban_Atlas According to Wikipedia, only 9 US cities are over 1 million. With the population of the US being what it is, I would have thought it was more.
@@Urban_Atlas US city population is limited by suburban development. You simply can't get huge massive city populations when you build cities where most of the land is occupied by low density, single family dwellings, in car dependent locations. Even cities like Boston have a small dense urban core, surrounded by sprawling suburban development. The metro area is something like 5 million, but only 9% live in the city proper (which also includes lower density areas). And Boston is one of the least 'sprawling' areas in the US...
that's because the official city borders make no sense
Most of those cities never had any amalgamation and the central city and surrounding cities have small boundaries.. how these city boundaries were drawn up varies by State and the time of settlement and growth...
I live in Edmonton, and the climate here is actually better than Winnipeg. Winter is very sunny and fairly dry. We tend to not get the huge dumps of snow Calgary gets, as they're closer to the mountains. But they are also at a higher altitude, and can get bitterly cold. But they also get a much stronger chinook. Summers in Edmonton are generally supposed to be fairly wet. We normally get 2 or 3 thunderstorms a week throughout summer, but the last few years have been incredibly dry. That is not normal. In the last 4 years, summers have also been getting far more days above 30 degrees. This past summer, after I spent 2 weeks in Tokyo where it was averaging 37-38 degrees with high humidity, we returned to Edmonton to very similar temperatures, but drier. But it did not feel cooler because of the intensity of the sun. But I would say that summer is absolutely beautiful here, and with the amount of greenspace in the city, the outdoors are very busy.
My wife is from Japan, and she has come to love Edmonton. Why? Because it is a comfortable city to live in, has great access to Japanese food (among other ethnic foods), great festivals, a growing train system (she's from Japan, I lived there for 11 years, and we love being able to get around by train), amazing outdoor activities, and it's not boring. So many people who don't live in Edmonton think it's boring, but there's actually a lot going on.
I share a similar experience, my wife is actually from Edmonton, so I have visited Edmonton several times in the last few years. To be honest, during my first visit I was pleasantly surprised!
Great outdoor spaces, LRT system, Housing was reasonable, food options were good. Only thing I did not like was how sprawling parts of the city felt. In the summers, it was 35 degrees, but it felt much better than the 30 degrees in Hamilton where I live. Edmonton was much more comfortable, whereas southern Ontario is incredibly muggy!
Overall, I personally wouldn't mind living in Edmonton myself. Thanks for your comment! Love reading first hand experiences like this :)!
37-38 in Tokyo...WOAH, is that supposed to happen there?
@@Urban_Atlas Yeah, it rarely gets muggy here. The LRT system is growing, now building out to West Edmonton Mall. I actually live in one of the sprawling parts of the city, but we have good connections to get to other areas.
@@frankmerrill2366 Mid 30s is fairly normal in summer. Just to the north of Tokyo, in Saitama, it regularly gets up to 38 or 39 in summer, and is one of the hottest parts of the country.
@@JayDeeMC Wow, that's crazy. I note it's a similar latitude to Louisville KY here, which is far enough north, and close to the water, that I wouldn't expect that.
Many people don't realize that Toronto is the fourth largest city in North America, after Mexico City, New York, and LA.
Absolutely!
Chicago is a bit larger than Toronto
Gaming with an American from Texas, who was shocked I hadn't heard of his hometown of like 50,000 people but had never heard of Edmonton, home to a million.... shock.
😂😂😂😂
Typical American lol 😅. Usually they only know Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal...
Greetings fellow Edmontonian! I hope you also pointed out to your Texan acquaintance that Alberta is pretty much Canada's version of Texas 🙂
@@Ar-qd2lx Yes. Also, they've just heard of them. They have no clue where they are. 🇨🇦
Any American that follows the NHL knows of the major cities in Canada
Ottawa is also a regional municipality with extensive rural area. It is larger by area than the country of Luxembourg. The cities that surprised me while travelling on business were Saskatoon and London, ON. The city of Gatineau across the river from Ottawa is also surprisingly large.
It used to be, but it was amalgamated into one city. Halifax was the same, but they used "regional municipality" as the name rather than "city".
Pas étonnant pour Gatineau : c'est la 4ième ville en importance au QuÉbec.
@@ALuimes true but the end result is the same, where most of the population is rural
I like that Canada is growing fast but wish we are building more homes, housing and services to match with that growth.
💯💯💯💯
In light of threats to our dollar and economy overall, I would love to see Canada become more self-sufficient w.r.t. manufacturing, agriculture, etc. For instance, we could grow more food year-round if massive investments were made in greenhouse construction. I know, it would be expensive, but then again, buying veggies from California and Florida is expensive too, if your dollar is tanking relative to the US dollar. We have a sufficient population to do it, if governments got out of the way, stopped being so greedy, and let the entrepreneurial spirit go.
I have lived in Edmonton for 99% of my life. The entire metropolitan area of Edmonton is about 1.6 million people. Edmonton alone has about slightly over 1.1 million people
True, don’t we have approx25 satellite cities that are a stone’s throw from us?
@@rhondathieson1156 yes, and most suspiciously start with S (St. Albert, Spruce Grove, Sherwood Park) 🤔
The Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge/Guelph urban aglomeration is the better part of 1 million at this point and growing. Great area and only getting bigger and better
Yea thats a good one aswell. Being from Southern Ontario, seen it grow rapidly in the last 20 years or so! Always thought Waterloo was a great place to live.
So true! My wWife and I moved to Guelph from downtown Toronto some time ago. I studied at the U of G in the eighties. Guelph has grown a lot but retains so much of its special charm and has grown in more thoughtful ways than so many N. American cities. KW is seeing so many interesting things happening and is getting more and more interesting from an urbanist perspective. Cambridge's cores are really cool and starting to see some revival - but that sprawl... something's gotta give there. I'm hopeful, though.
This is a wonderful region.
I love how these four cities have always been so connected and similar but there’s never really been a strong name for describing them together 😂
I’ve heard “tri-cities” be used but that’s more so describing the Waterloo region with Guelph implied every now and then.
“GCKW” is the most we’ve gotten and even then the order is always changed around in the acronym
@jimjimmers8571 Approximately 10km is all that seperates the edge of Guelph from the edge of K.W at this point...crazy! Growing up in Guelph in the late 80's (pop 60k-ish) we hardly ever went to Kitchener or really even thought about it as a destination...seemed far away actually. They may actually merge in my lifetime at their fringes. Kitchener now has quite a bit going on...Waterloo is truly ugly as sin with all the hopeless student highrises and sprawl but also quite a happening place depending on what you are into (compared to how it was in the past at least). All in all a great place to live and a very free place to grow up. I lived in Elora too for a while and Elora and Fergus also have a distinct SW ontario feel and charm that has only blossomed with steady growth. Brantford, though.....ugggh. still a depressing mess unfortunately.
@@jimjimmers8571 Golden Triangle is the nickname I first heard long ago - along with The Tri-cities- and is quite apt, I think.
Not Canadian but still surprised how big Edmonton turns out to be. Made me think of East Texas with the energy economy, right down to the sister cities.
Yea and it’s growing fast!
Alberta's large cities don't really have suburbs. in the early 1960s the Alberta government amalgamated Calgary and Edmonton's suburbs into the respective main cities. British Columbia hasn't done this but instead has created a level of government above the cities and their suburbs called regional districts. I don't think it works very well.
Ali - you are so right about biases and relativity. I have lived in Vancouver for over 35 years and marvel today (and not often in a good way) about the extent of the Greater Vancouver Area's built environment; its now feeling quite huge and somewhat overpopulated (based on the geographical contingencies which are determining factors in its growth. As for Vancouver proper, it has recently been superseded in population by our own 'Mississauga West' - the suburb of Surrey.
Halifax should’ve been included. It’s probably the city with the biggest gap between its actual population and how others perceive it. Cities like Mississauga are expected to be big (for the most part), but most people outside Atlantic Canada genuinely believe Halifax is a quaint fishing village. Obviously it’s no Toronto or Ottawa, but for being so isolated from any other big cities, it seems huge.
Fair enough, i debated adding it as well. Could have easily done so. A justified addition!
Doesn't Halifax have four hundred thousand people in an area ten times the size of Toronto? I'm sure it's a nice place, but that sounds pretty small to me.
@@lost_porkchop The HRM has around 525,000 as of 2024. Like I said, I know that’s very small compared to other cities but in the context of the region it’s a big city. Just like how you could say Ottawa’s a big city, but then compared to NY, LA, Mexico City, São Paulo, it’s like a little village.
@VEGAS-NERVE Ottawa isn't a big city
I'm from outside of Atlantic Canada. Southern Ontario.
I was actually suprised at how non-metropolitan and "small" Halifax is because it kinda holds the place as the urban centre of the Maritimes. And it's population is significant. But it's both very spread out and so very isolated from other urban centers that it maintains a much smaller urban footprint than comparable cities of its size.
Just my experience.
To all Americans who believe it's all igloos, moose and beaver pelts on a dog sled.
Pay attention.
😂😂😂
I’m from Winnipeg and I just realized that Winnipeg is kinda large actually. Sure I’m very familiar with the city to the point where it feels a bit small but I just realized that Winnipeg has more people than the entirety of North Dakota
Yea Winnipeg is up there as well, especially considering its isolated location. And yes you are right it has more people than a few states!
This has got to me one of my favourite and close to my hear videos! I am from Edmonton and I was there when the population was nowhere close to 1 million, it has grown so much since the oil and sands and then again now with people from Ontario moving there due to unachievable housing prices.
💯💯💯
Ottawa's size is misleading because Ottawa was amalgamated with 11 regional municipalities including Gloucester, Nepean, Orleans and Kanata which were each about the same size as the old Ottawa in population.
That’s a great point! Makes sense as to why the density is so low!
When amalgamation happened in Ontario the population shot up in several cities. Hamilton had a steady population of around 300,000 for years. With amalgamation, it's now 600,000 (for the city proper) and 800,000 for the metro area.
I've only been to Ottawa once for work with a coworker. As we drove in, we saw the sign, and my coworker asked "where is it?". There was like nothing but forest 😂
@@lost_porkchop 😂😂😂
Ha. I grew up in Surrey and it is surprising every time I go there. New buildings, sure, but new roads, intersections, neighbourhoods, and traffic. It’s weird to see pockets that align with my memories that have no recognizable elements around them because there’s new development all around it. Surreal.
Surrey’s growth is actually crazy!
Surreal... mix of fact and fantasy...fantastic !
I am a simple man. And a Canadian.
And an Edmontonian. Which I've been now since 1998.
I see a video about Canadian cities being larger than "I" (i.e. non-Canadians) would've thought, with the video's thumbnail being a satellite image of a remarkably familiar-looking region, and I click. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(I should probably mention, though, that I've often suspected that people outside of Canada, and maybe even Canadians outside of Alberta, would be surprised to learn that Edmonton is home to so many people. I think most Americans just know of it as the home of the Edmonton Oilers, and the site of a large mall.)
Agreed, regarding most Americans only know of Edmonton because of the Oilers 😂
I was surprised by Saskatoon when I drove through there a few years ago. It's smaller than the cities mentioned in the video, but considering its location it was very impressive.
I used to work for the city of Missisauga and Toronto and they are growing like crazy thanks for the content
I also worked for the City of Mississauga LOL
@Urban_Atlas I did the grass and snow removal for bus stops 🙃
@@cavetroll666 awesome! I worked at City of Mississauga as an intern in their planning department LOL. Transportation Demand Management and Transportation Planning!
always saw that place grow, Weird to see as a person from Georgetown
@Urban_Atlas it's just a suburb of Toronto 😂😂😂
As an Edmontonian and 4th generation Albertan I am never surprised by our population numbers. OTHERS are but I'm not. Even visiting Washington or Oregon will make any Albertan feel like an alien because they don't know where that is or how many people live there despite being about 12 hours away by car. For the record, Alberta will add its 5th million resident in the next few months according to last estimates...
What did surprise me is the trend towards secondary centres or edge cities which is a far more common American concept than what we see here. But Surrey and Mississauga are proving to become quite the alternative urban hubs almost outshining their OG nearby rivals. Kudos.
Always love reading your comments brother! You always have great insights. For me Surrey is probably the biggest surprise, almost unheard of that a secondary city (suburb city) starts to approach the primary city in the metro area and will even surpass it soon. Perhaps, Surrey will become the primary city ? Its dependent on Surrey City Council and planning how they control the growth and designate land uses and potentially even provide incentives for corporations to relocate? It's a fascinating situation and probably the first of its kind in Canada.
@@Urban_Atlas As someone who hasn't been to B.C it completely surprised me when I learned that about Surrey, I suppose it has none of the institutional and cultural weight needed but the fact that its population will be bigger without being the namesake of the metro is insane to me.
As for Edmonton, well I'm partial to Calgary so it was always funny to me that it's bigger than the capital. I understand your argument for the surprise factor though.
Looking to move to Edmonton either summer of 2025 or 2026 (CAF member won't know until I talk to the career manager at the end of January) I'm not bothered by the weather I already lived in Grande Prairie and Yellowknife.
Tbh the weather isn’t actually all that bad. Summers are actually beautiful, esp coming from southern Ontario where summers can be horribly humid.
@Urban_Atlas currently in the maritimes I really miss the dry cold/heat of the prairies/north
It's a city of crime and criminals now. Public transportation is dangerous as hell. Homelessness is outrageous. I had a friend from gta and another from Florida who lived in 38 states over 44 years and they both said they've never seen such a demonic place in their lives
@@DJansen-z5e lol
@@DJansen-z5e That's true of every large major North American city thanks to devastating budget cuts to social welfare programs that keeps vulnerable people from tipping into drug addiction and homelessness. Alas you'd rather just be a sour face complainer than actually look to see what's causing the problem. Typical...
You made mention of Halifax. I’m from the east coast and it doesn’t surprise me on its size, people I talk to in the prairies(where I’ve lived for the last 20 years) are shocked to find out its population is almost half a million.
Honourable mention to Quebec City (560k). Seems to fade away because Montreal is far more well known.
Yea others have also mentioned Halifax, could have added it as most people aren’t aware of its size. A justified addition!
I think Quebec City metro area is pushing 1 million, at least within a 1.5 hr drive or train
As someone who used to live in Halifax, I'm surprised it isn't larger. It pushes above it's weight in terms of how large it feels imo
you hinted at edmontons value to the north but could have gone deeper into albertas/edmontons value for supply to the NWT .. and maybe saskatoon should have been mentioned as it is growing as well and its value to northern saskatchewan minerals/resources
Prince George and Sudbury were both a lot larger than I expected. Especially the Greater Sudbury area.
As someone from Prince George can confirm the main reason we’re so big is that PG is the hub for northern BC the railways to Vancouver prince Rupert and Alberta come through here in the past it was a hub for steamboats since its on the confluence of the Fraser and nachako rivers our hospital is the only one in the north with more advanced equipment and is a center for forestry
This does create an odd geography in that we look smacked dab in the middle of nowhere and any major cities (Kamloops, Kelowna, Vancouver area) are all hours away
@@troutinspace5427 PG is also a very beautiful place.
Prince George had a city proper population in the 90k range in the nineties, that has gone down.
Over 800 mills have been shut down in Western Canada over the last thirty-years, which has had an impact. Nevertheless the city is as mentioned by others, a shopping and services hub, and highway/railway hub.
@@geographyinaction7814 that’s definitely true it’s gone down from 80000 even in my life time but it’s still deceptively big because you wouldn’t guess from looking at it on a map that it would be that big
Yup I was going to say Sudbury too - unlike some of these that were mentioned, Sudbury is all by itself in the middle of nowhere and is surprisingly large!
The city that surprised me was Anchorage. Blew me away that it has more than 300,000. A city that you can’t even drive to! But also surprised me that it’s at a similar latitude as Helsinki, Stockholm and Oslo.
It is very surprising, especially given its isolation! However it has played a vital role through its airport (stopover point between flights from Asia to the US). You can actually drive to it from Canada!
Just another banger video! Great stuff :D :D
Appreciate the kind words! 😊
RE: Ottawa- Gatineau is an integral part of Ottawa and that would elevate the population numbers close to 1.5 million (the CMA has two portions, ON and QC)
I live in London. We are broaching 500k in the city proper and the CMA is coming up on 600k. Most people outside of the country have never even heard of it and are often absolutely floored when I tell them how big of a city it is.
Yes, a great addition, London is surprisingly large, and relatively unknown outside of Canada and probably even outside of Ontario.
I think Manaus in Brazil is probably one of the most fascinating cities considering where it's located, it has no direct connections to the rest of Brazil and it's still one of the biggest cities in Brazil, also the biggest in the amazon region
Definitely such a unique and isolated city! Maybe I will cover it in a future video!
Not a complaint, just something I'll point out as someone who lives in Surrey. The footage there and overview on Google Maps is inaccurate for the what is now "Downtown Surrey" or "City Centre." It shows maybe 10-12 High rises. We actually have close to 20+ with more being built all the time. Check back in a year and there will be triple what it shows, maybe quadruple.
As an Albertan, Edmonton's population was never that surprising to me because I always saw it for the reasons illustrated in the video. Could Lethbridge be considered part of that corridor given its status as a transportation hub?
My take away is that it's hard to compare Canadian and American cities by population as many American cities have much larger CMA populations relative to the well known city within that CMA.
If Missisauga was on it's own somewhere like Winnipeg it would be an impressively sized city, but it's only ever considered a Toronto neighborhood.
Exactly! Thats exactly what I was thinking. It would
Probably have its owns pro sports team.
Brampton is 700k. Surprised its not on here. Right beside Mississauga.
Had in on here initially, decided to just keep one, didn’t want to the video to be Ontario heavy.
@@Urban_Atlas Perhaps tweak the video and call Mississauga and Brampton the Peel Region? Practically the same.
the video was about Canadian cities ,,,, lol
@@jeremythebeer8609 Peel Region isn't a city though; its like a county.
@@ALuimes I know... It all blends in together though.
Prince george bc is north of Edmonton and has a population over 100k
Are you sure? Over 100k, metro or city population?
Neither , I goofed. Sorry
I liked the video and the concept. Maybe consider Oshawa to the east of Toronto with a growing population of 414,405
Honestly to me a suburb of another city can not be a city on it's own. To me a city is a continuous metro area, anything else is a neighborhood of a city.
Good video. I've got some nitpicks though...
I'd say Milton is southwest of Mississauga, and Oakville is south of Mississauga. Rather than as you described in the video.
I think some other cities like Halifax could've gotten onto this list, however. Most cities you've mentioned seem oddly populous at first, but you could probably think of some reasons as to why they're so big even without being a huge geography nerd (e.g. Mississauga/Surrey being in the metropolitan areas of 2 of Canada's biggest and most well-known cities, and Edmonton being economically prosperous/important). Most don't expect any Atlantic Canadian cities to be more than just "city" in name.
And I think there's some issues with how you clipped your mic audio to fit the video, it seems like you're clipping the end off your mic audio too soon.
It might seem like I'm being overly critical, but I'm merely sharing my feedback, I'm not trying to hurt or insult. Good video as a whole, though.
Appreciate you! Those are all great points.
@@Urban_Atlas Hopefully I didn't come off as too negative. As otherwise, the video is pretty good.
@@DLBBALL no you didn’t, I don’t mind constructive criticism, I’m new to TH-cam and still learning slowly, and suggestions are appreciated. As long as it’s not anything rude or personal towards me it’s all good!
@@Urban_Atlas I don't know anyone who would think of Oakville as "south" of Mississauga
@@ALuimes What should it be then? That Milton is WSW and Oakville is SW of Sauga?
At the very least, I wouldn't say Milton is NW of the city as said in the video.
Surrey is good example of why home prices in BC are so high. Just looking at your video presenting city from the drone it's easy to spot main problem. It's basically full of single-family homes (detached houses). I'm from Poland and here in most cities the basic standard are 4-5 storey blocks, then 10-11 storey blocks, and even taller ones. There of course also are areas in outskirts of cities which has detached houses but probably if compare the most cities have 80-85% of land covered by blocks, and rest are homes.
Great observation, that is a major problem in many Canadian cities, the over abundance of single family homes and limited amount of what we call
The “missing middle” type
Housing. That being medium density 4-5 story condos or apartments.
It’s expected that within the next 2-5 years, Surrey will actually surpass Vancouver by population as it has larger land area with lots of it still undeveloped, while Vancouver is surrounded by other cities and has nowhere to build but up (or annex nearby cities.) I predict, that the entire metropolitan area is doomed to have a population collapse in the next 15 years or so, when housing gets too expensive and the cities become too crammed and there’s no more room to grow (Already neighborhoods have been scaling the mountains).
I think we should rename Lotusland officially as the Greater SURREY Regional District as it's soon to be the largest city in the Lower Mainland.. And it will soon have the tallest tower too if that approved project gets shovels in the ground. Seriously though it goes to show you how affordable housing is the largest driver of population growth these days hence why the second tier Canadian large cities and markets are doing so well... Aka Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa. I suspect Hamilton, Winnipeg and Quebec City will soon join this list because again the affordability and quality of life compared to the cost of living. I think a lot more people would rather be "Hot in Cleveland" these days than struggling to survive the unliveable conditions of your Toronto's, New York's, Vancouver's and Los Angeles' so to speak...
Old core cities will always feel like the most important to me even if a suburb surpasses them in population due to urban geography and history. For instance, the Skytrain network is concentrated in Vancouver and always will be.
Despite having 1 million people, I can confirm Ottawa is pretty small
Love Your work !
@@beak3669 appreciate you 🙏
By population for sure they are large especially Mississauga and Surrey, but on the other side, both of the municipalities are large in land sizes and flat (most of it) which make it easy to crate a relatively affordable housing market compare to the Core City like Vancouver and Toronto. Keep it up my fellow planner, waves from BC.
This is one of my favorite urban atlas video, always love learning about our cities, in thr flip side some ofnthe comparison cities you show could be another video called cities that are surprisingly small!
I agree! I might make that video next.
As an American, I'm surprised not seeing Brampton among the four cities. Gotta say that Ottawa caught me a little off-guard, though, and I was there only eight weeks ago. But, if you're showcasing four cities, there's only room for four - that's how that works, lol. Missisauga, though, was the very first one that came to my mind before I "looked".
Edmonton is also very very bad for crime too
Interesting video. I never really think about places like Mississauga and Surrey, when I think of Canadian cities. It's their metro center that usually gets most of the focus.
As an idea for another unique video on cities, I've always been curious about how cities act as a 'region of influence', based on industry. For example, Vancouver is debatably the hub for lumber exports.. so what territory does it cover as the dominant industry, and where is the border where oil becomes the dominant industry in and around Alberta? Ie, for cities over 500K, if you created a map of their borders as if all the farmland were part of that city's metro, up until it touched the border of the next industry-type, you'd have a super metro population, in a sense of all cities.
If you wanted to categorize oil on the map, too, you'd probably have to split up Edmonton with northern influence, and Calgary with southern influence. Perhaps that influence reaches part-way into Saskatchewan, but does it include Regina and Saskatoon, or is wheat the dominant industry in Sask? The prairies would probably be dominated by Winnipeg, with the wheat industry, of course, but Winnipeg also is the nearest metro area to most of northern Ontario too, so one could argue Winnipeg's influence stretches as far as Thunder Bay, where the wheat gets shipped to Europe. The east coast would be dominated by Halifax, with fisheries, and so on.
Now, if you consider the industrial influences by region, I'd be curious what region has the biggest population. Edmonton and Winnipeg, for example, might be larger economic hubs than their census data indicates. Maybe Toronto isn't as dominant as we think it is, and thus perhaps we should re-think which zones get budgeted the most money, as a result.
That is an excellent idea, but one that may be difficult to execute and analyze.
Could be done using GIS Tools but would probably require a significant amount of research! But, I like the way you think, this would actually be great topic for a potential Thesis paper! Thank for you the insights!
When compared to toronto lmao. To A Hamiltonian, The sauga is wildly expensive
It’s expensive compared to most other cities lol, only affordable for people relocating from Toronto
Born and raised in Surrey, It's hugeeee but doesnt have the infrastructure to handle all the people coming
Grande Prairie is also a regional hub for the Peace Region. Grande Prairie is a "Get it Done Yesterday" city and is home to a lot of millionaires, as is Bonnyville. A major regret I have is that I did not, when young, tap into the job market that made Alberta a magnificent economic engine.
May I ask where you got your population stats for Regina and Saskatoon? I was under the impression they were both approaching 250,000. The 2021 census has Regina at 226,404.
You are correct there is a typo regarding the Saskatoon and Regina population numbers. However, Surrey is still larger than both combined. I have pinned the correct numbers from the 2021 census.
Ok but I gotta say though... Watching Mississauga on google earth was something else.. What a hellscape! It's horrendous! Just a sea of cul-de-sacs with single family homes, industries and parking lots... Watching Edmonton after made it look like an urban paradise hahahah
Interesting! I can understand Surrey's growth, given the west coast climate; not so clear on why Edmonton has grown instead of Calgary? Any thoughts on this?
Calgary has grown as well! But for me Edmonton was more surprising, Calgary has a more favourable climate I think, a more robust and now diversified economy. It’s closer to the US and the gateway the Rockies (Banff, Yoho). Thus Calgary’s growth was more expected so to speak. Edmonton caught be off guard both when I visited and when I researched the population numbers!
Same with Scandinavian cities, Stockholm is located at the same latitude as Juneau AK but has the population of greater Seattle
St Petersburg is on about the same latitude as Yellowknife. It's amazing that such an amazing cultural centre as St. Petersburg is so far north.
Downtown Regina is impressive for such a small city,
38 salty Americans have disliked this video 😂
LMAO !
Thanks to Eastern Canadian cities restructuring/amalgamation that happened in late 1990s, many of the main urban hubs has amalgamated with surrounding cities, towns and farmlands to make 1 large city. This happened to Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Gatineau, Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax, etc (although some former cities in Quebec voted to demerge) - and thus see a jump in their population growth.
I noticed a number of Chicoutimi signs when I was up in Saguenay in the middle of November. Is that a case of the former city embracing its identity as (now) a neighborhood, or did they demerge?
One reason Mississagua is still independent is because that city fought tooth and nail to NOT be part of the Greater Toronto Amalgamation back then. And because they have Pearson Airport, Mississagua had enough power to make that stick. If that city's leadership had given in to the amalgamation back then, we would need a new 4th city for this video.
@@frankmerrill2366 Yeah, I think they're all part of Saguenay now, but because Saguenay is so big, they may have just left the neighborhood signs up so you'll know which part of Saguenay you're in. They do the same thing in Levis with the neighborhood in parenthesis (like Charny or St. Romuald).
@@Taeolas Actually, Mississauga was never meant to be part of that amalgamation as it only involved Metro Toronto. Mississauga was in Peel. And if it had been, Mike Harris would've forcefully included it.
@@ronansanjuan Actually one of the Chicoutimi signs that I saw, was on a fully-electronic advertising sign (much smaller than a billboard, with a rotation of eight or nine screens) downtown, so it was "current" and not an old city/neighborhood sign. Something about an upcoming observance if my memory is accurate. I was there at night, but it looked like a very delightful place.
I didn't realize Levis is also an amalgamation. I don't speak French, but I remember their AM radio station (920, I think it wasx CFLS?) was the best Top 40 station in Quebec City when I drove through in 1984.
When I visited Cambridge, Ontario years ago (in a rather ineffective effort to trace some of my roots, because I really don't know how to do it, lol), I don't remember seeing mentions of Galt, etc. there. But I did see a couple businesses that retained the former names, which I forget, but similar to my hypothetical examples like Galt Lumber, Preston Optical...
I wish all these places weren't "in a foreign country" - this would be such a great time to be Canadian, though I'm seeing some troubling signs north of me too. Thousands of times (since at least 1978-9) I've wished I'd been born Canadian...
I think that Canadian cities with NHL teams like Ottawa and Edmonton; the fact that they have notable populations isn't surprising at all. Now Surrey and to a lesser extent Mississauga are surprising
You wouldn’t be surprised about Surrey if you drive during morning and afternoon rush hours 😂 🚙 🚗 🚙 😂
Very interesting content, friend!
👍👍
Thank you! Cheers!
wow your info on Saskatoon is out of date, our population is well over 300,000, probably a little over 350,000 tbh
I think you mean your metro area population is over 350k. I’m referring to the city proper population.
@Urban_Atlas no I actually mean the city. The last estimate by council was 289k a couple of years ago, and I believe that was underestimating then. The GSA is over 300k as well, though.
I went to Saskatoon for first the first time last summer. I didn't see any suburbs outside of the city . It basically went from urban to farmland. Is there different urban communities touching the urban part of Saskatoon? @@brizybutterfly
@eddienazar-qd1pi it depends on what highway you take. The city of Martinsville shares a border with saskatoon to the north, the town of Pike Lake shares one to the west, CFB Dundurn, and the town of Dundurn to the south, for instance.
@@brizybutterfly I loved the small towns like Rosetown ElRose and the Lake near Kyle where I stayed. The Lake life was a blast. The town of Kyle had a Rodeo with a barn dance with live music 🎶. What a great experience. I loved Saskatchewan.
Calgary is actually larger than Edmonton.
but people expect Calgary to be a large city.
As a Vancouverite, I knew you would pick Surrey. The city proper covers a huge area including the hills where most people live on and the farmlands all the way to the southern border. However, the growth of the city is not without drawbacks. Like most Canadian cities, Surrey is a car-centric suburban hell with wide residential streets and huge lots for huge homes. Many cul-de-sacs within the half-mile city blocks makes walking to bus routes awkward and discouraged. The city has a reputation of attracting crime and gangs due to proximity with the border and lax surveillance in the farmlands. Now, they can get away with taller glass and concrete condos without a height restriction like Vancouver does because of Coast Mountains NIMBYism. The SkyTrain is finally expanding further along the Fraser Highway. Surrey shares the same problems with Vancouver by proximity but a few things have gotten better over the decades.
Interesting! thank you for leaving this comment, I truly enjoy reading the opinions, experiences and first-hand knowledge from a local perspective! I have yet to visit Surrey, even though I have been to Vancouver several times. I did notice the fact the away from downtown Vancouver the buildings are taller which makes sense due to Van's height restrictions. I would be interested in looking into Surrey crime statistics. Surrey's growth probably surprised me the most, eventually it will surpass Vancouver. Will Vancouver one day be part of the greater Surrey area LOL? Thank you for your insights :)!
@@Urban_Atlas Thanks for response!
Surrey has a significant chunk of industrial jobs in Metro Vancouver, they're building new industrial parks over old pasture lands in the south. Growth will be limited to be near transportation hubs because single-family detached is dominant. Most retail still relies on parking lot paradise, outside of Vancouver proper there is a Walmart for every 100000 citizens.
Since the legalization of marijuana, the drug cartel has died down a lot along with the gun trade.
Great work. Thanks for sharing this knowledge.
You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!
Sounds you like you have never been to Edmonton. Winnipeg has the colder winters than Edmonton. Edmonton winters can be unpredictable
I have actually, my in laws live there. I never said Edmonton is colder than Winnipeg…. I just said Edmonton has cold winters which it does.
Lived in Edmonton in the 90s
The river valley was my playground.. best biking ever !! ❤️ ❤❤
Edmonton's greenspaces are very nice and surprisingly vast!
This is really cool! Thank you for sharing
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for this content very interesting as always.
You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed it.
I'm surprised about Surrey having that many people that can afford to live there.
Surrey doesn't border Burnaby at all. It borders New Westminster to the northwest, connected my a number of bridges, too. Lets' not forget whom it borders to the south, as well - White Rock and Blaine, Washington.
You are correct, that’s my mistake.
@@Urban_Atlas Sorry, didn't want to be that guy. Great video otherwise! Living in the Vancouver area I know that it's only a short while until Surrey will outgrow Vancouver proper, but I didn't realize just how populous it already was!
@@timtwoface it’s all
Good brother, I don’t mind any constructive criticism, and you were polite about it. After all, it was my mistake :)
Love your content keep up the great work. Surrey (whose population is projected to surpass that of Vancouver city) has the ambition to be its own metropolitan area - combining with the other cities south of the Fraser - and thus avoiding the high tax download from Vancouver (which has four times the debt of Surrey).
It would be interesting to see what happens in the future as Surrey continues to grow and develop!
Perhaps you could explain whatever quirk in provincial law it is that allows Calgary to gobble up every community within 50 miles of the downtown core, vs. Edmonton which has about 300,000 people living in bedroom communities within a 40 minute drive of the downtown core. This discrepancy in measurement gives Calgary a false advantage when it comes to allotment of both Provincial and Federal funding. If Calgary claims a population of
nearly 1.5 mil, Edmonton can certainly claim to have 1.4 mil within a reasonable commute.
Calgary metro area covers less than half the area of Edmonton. Calgary metro is 1.7 million in 2024 and Edmonton 1.5 million. Okotoks, which is 5 minutes south of Calgary isn't included in the metro population. Gibbons is close to an hour from Edmonton and is included in the metro area. The numbers are skewed to be sure, but not in Calgary's favour.
Mississauga mentioned!!!
I've long noticed that Canada is different from the US in that many US cities are surrounded by a large collection of small suburbs while that is rarely the case in Canada. In Canada we either have a central city that covers most of the metro area leaving no (or few) separate suburbs at all, or there are a small number of very large suburbs. You can see the single city model in Calgary, Alberta, Winnipeg, and Halifax, while you can see the few large suburbs model in Toronto and Vancouver. Montreal is a slight exception but even its suburbs are fewer and larger than you'd typically see in the US.
Edmonton is surrounded by a very large cluster of smaller cities. Ft. Saskatchewan, Leduc, Nisku, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Sherwood Park (which is a hamlet, organizationally speaking). Calgary is more or less standalone huge. I was amazed, driving through Calgary last summer, how huge that city is.
Mississauga also has a great waterfront. I worked there for years and originally hated it... Horrible traffic, huge Bleak industrial areas, etc)... but ended up liking the older less built up parts, the waterfront, and the parks. Not for me but I can see why people live there.
South Mississauga is a great place to live, shame it’s so expensive 🥲
Mississauga isn't basically a suburb of Toronto, it is a suburb of Toronto! 😂
lol 😝
Love that you are talking about "cities proper" and not metro areas, census, areas, etc...
I dont think anyone is surprised by Edmonton or ottawa since theyre major Canadian cities. Id say any city without a pro sports team over 400k would be surprisingly large.
Ottawa surprised me, mostly because I wasn't aware of its amalgamation with a few former suburbs.
How do you spell ur name? Is it Ali or Eli?
Killing it rn dude, sending luv from Ottawa
Thank you 😊! It’s Ali, like Muhammad Ali.
I don't blame you for not knowing that Ottawa has 1m+ people, some members of the city council seem to think that there are less than 50k people in Ottawa (or at least they act like that's what they think)
😂😂😂
check out The greater city of Sudbury
Excellent information as usual.
On another note..
The most desirable city in Canada is Penticton. Climate, location, and recreation contribute to its success.
I could do Penticton. It is one of the few places in Canada where you can get some nice weather in the winter without having to go to the USA or Mexico.
Bro this said nothing, "suburbs of big cities are actually small cities" and "small cities with huge boundaries capture the whole metro population" are not surprises.
Edmonton Alberta is about four hundred kilometres away from Fort McMurray.
Personally, I find city proper populations (and comparisons based on them) kind of pointless. Metropolitan populations reflect how cities actually work in real life. So when you started off by stating that the list was based on city proper populations, I kind of tuned out and didn't finish watching.
That’s a fair criticism, my plan was to compare city propers, and do a follow
Up video comparing metro populations. Just to get a better chance to explore both metrics.
Burnaby does not border Surrey, New Westminster does.
Yes, apologies for that, my mistake.
Are you traveling back in time? Saskatoon has way more than 198,958 people
@TheHotmitch - 266K+ as of the 2021 census.
@watson956 I know he's not using Metro numbers, but the whole video feels useless. He's talking about Mississauga and Surrey as surprisingly large... They're just extended Toronto and Vancouver. He's referencing cities that were founded in the 90s and 60s as suburbs of major cities and acting like they're separate places.
Surrey’s Google Earth model is very out of date. There’s about triple the number of towers now.
In the same way New York City absorbed its big next-door neighbour Brooklyn in 1898, one wonders if eventually Vancouver absorbs Surrey or Toronto absorbs Mississauga.
Toronto absorbing Mississauga would be politically problematic as the latter is in a different upper-tier region (county). Toronto already absorbed its suburbs that were in its former "political" metro area; Metropolitan Toronto. Greater Vancouver is all contained in the GVRD.
@@ALuimes Well, the "municipalities" law is not carved in stone, and if at some point the provincial assembly or Parliament passed some bill mandating it, it would happen.
I get the point of the video, but its misleading to say Edmonton is bigger than Denver. Its only meaningful to compare metro areas.
The main takeaway is that the majority of US Cities are actually an agglomeration of several medium or small sized cities whereas, the majority of Canadian cities are mainly just the city “proper”, the only major exceptions being Toronto and Vancouver.
Google earth looks like they need to revisit Surrey. Way more high rises now
Ottawa is such a cool city maaan
Brampton here
Yeah I live 2 hours from Ottawa and the sign used to be past Kanata but now the sign is an hour outside of Ottawa. It makes no sense. Ottawa/Hull counts, sure. We are bilingual for a reason.
Imagine moving to Canada to escape the US only to have it become the 51st state…..ROFL
D'ohh!!
Mississahgah
We can not compare cities like this bro. C’mon.
Suburbs are suburbs, and délimitations are just for administration. Any city in Canada our USA have the Same fckg rules. As Read above.
For example Ottawa has joined all rural areas for administration pumping it up.
Bad title for this post.
Métro areas, are the only way to compare in urbanism.
Another video comparing metro areas coming soon as well.
@ Yes! Glad to follow you up.