Saskatoon - City or Census Metropolitan Area (CMA)

When Statistics Canada and others report city populations it is often unclear what geographical area they are referring to.

Do the numbers refer to just those areas within the official city limits, or do they include the wider geographical area around the city.

Statistics Canada defines a Census Metropolitan Area or CMA as follows:

A census metropolitan area (CMA) or a census agglomeration (CA) is formed by one or more adjacent municipalities centred on a large urban area (known as the urban core). The census population count of the urban core must be at least 10,000 to form a census agglomeration and at least 100,000 to form a census metropolitan area. To be included in the CMA or CA, other adjacent municipalities must have a high degree of integration with the central urban area, as measured by commuting flows derived from census place of work data. If the population of the urban core of a CA declines below 10,000, the CA is retired. However, once an area becomes a CMA, it is retained as a CMA even if the populaton of its urban core population declines below 100,000. The urban areas that are located in the CMA or CA bit are not contiguous to the urban core are called the urban fringe. Rural areas in the CMA or CA are called the rural fringe.

Whan a CA has an urban core of at least 50,000 based on census counts, it is subdivided into census tracts. Census tracts are maintained for the CA even if the populaton of the urban core subsequently falls below 50,000. All CMAs are subdivided into census tracts.

The following map shows the Census Tracts that make up the Saskatoon CMA.
The Census Tracts that are within the Saskatoon city limits show as a cluster in the center of the map.

Census Tract 2006 Pop  notes
7250100.01 4201 the square (with upwards tail in NE) surrounding the city.
7250101.00 5048 the area to the North West of the city.
7250102.01 6500 the small irregular area north of the city, to the east.
7250102.02 5938 the small irregular are noth of CT7250102.01
7250103.00 2842 the square area east of the city
7250104.00 1842 the area to the south of the city
7250105.00 4442 the area to the South West of the city
7250110.00 770 the area farthest east of the city

Saskatoon Population: City and CMA
Year City CMA Pct City
1991 186,067 210,949 88.20%
1996 193,647 219,056 88.40%
2001 196,811 225,927 87.11%
2006 202,340 233,923 86.50%