PEI fastest-growing region in Canada, census shows

Key takeaways:

Cornwall rates as the fastest-growing neighborhood on PEI.
Development in PEI’s rural places was rather intense.

Fastest growing places in PEI:

With a population increase of 8.0 percent since the 2016 census, PEI rates as the fastest-growing region in the nation, according to the first release of data from the 2021 census.

Nationally the population increased 5.2 percent.

PEI framed out BC as the fastest growing region. BC’s population rose 7.6 percent.

The census estimated 154,331 Islanders. The recent assessment for the population is 165,936.

The distinction represents what is known as undercount, those Islanders not caught by the census. Over the following year, Statistics Canada will start to intervene census data with other data to set a new population figure.

Cornwall arrived out as the fastest-growing neighborhood on the Island, among neighborhoods with a population of 1,000 or more. The top five were:

Cornwall: +22.9%.
North Shore: +16.2%.
Malpeque Bay: +15.6%.
New London: +15.2%.
Alberton: +13.6%. Source – cbc.ca

Stratford, long identified as fastest-growing, dropped to sixth at 12.5 percent.

Also read: Climate shuts and postpones schools in western PEI.

Census states PEI is the fastest developing province in Canada

Canada increasingly metropolitan

The list describes how the population increase on PEI is tugging a national trend.

Four of the communities are supposed to be rural on the Island, not adjoining or part of one of the region’s two cities.

Meanwhile, Canada is becoming increasingly urban. At 10.9 percent, the population increase in downtown centers was almost double the rise for the nation.

PEI’s metropolitan communities rose 9.5 percent, only a little more than the regional average.

Almost three-quarters of Canadians stay in cities, while the urban-rural separation is approximately equal on the Island.

While there is not much distinction in rural versus urban growth, there is a tendency for individuals to settle toward the center of the region.

Queens County rose 9.7 cents, Kings was up 6.8 percent, and the population of Prince grew 5.3 percent.