Talk:List of census divisions of Canada by population

"Type of subdivision"

After correcting the name of Vancouver's regional district (an endless task given the saturation of the media & wikipedia mis-use of the name of its board) I went to the "reference", which turned out to be the Wikipedia link to the Statistics Canada article and not a real ref......and went to the Vancouver page at the Census; which isn't listed as a regional district, it's listed as a census metropolitan area, as with other cities; looking up Stikine, it (Stikine Region) is listed as a "census division", likewise Kitimat-Stikine, i.e. they are not listed as "regional districts" in the source. I would think part of the reason for this is the inappropriateness of placing Indian Reserve data on a page called "regional district", as IRs are outside regional district governance/elections. In any case the terminology used by StatsCan should be what's in the list, not transpositions of what else the subdivisions are, or are defined as - though you'd have to dig to find "Vancouver's census metropolitan area is defined by the GVRD boundaries".....the fact of the matter is that the census devision boundaries are only coterminous with regional districts in BC; they are not the same thing. I have yet to dig through various census pages to check something else - whether or not IR populations are included in the census subdivision totals when those census divisions are RDs. Except when IR populations have refused census activities on their doorstep altogether (which is very common), IR data is searchable an compiled separately....this makes a big difference in regions of BC where native populations are a significant minority and/or majority/close-to majority. And they are most definitely not part of a regonal district; though they are (or may be) part of a census division/subdivision. My issue here is correct usage, and what the sources say. And also with the shoddy non-ref, which shoudl go to a specific StatsCan page listing census divisions by population.Skookum1 (talk) 14:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Wiki-obsession with small caps in titles

I noted:

• Cree village
• Naskapi village
• Indian government district
• etc

The problem with such titles is they obscure the legal title of these places with the more generic usages, i.e. "a village of the Cree", "village of the Naskapi" vs an incorporated titled Cree Village, Naskapi Village. In the case of the Indian Government Districts, these so far are only to be found in the lower Sunshine Coast as part of the Sechelt Indian Government District and that's a specific land-title allotment (separate IGDs were formerly IRs, all of them combined are the SIGD). This is similar to my problem with Indian small-case-r reserve vs the proper land-title/status name "Indian Reserve" but gets even more pointed because of the more common usage of "village", "settlement" vs the formal/governmental usage. Quite often seeing these lower-case wiki-isms is very jarring and also has complications in usage; will an article on "Cree village" be about the limited number of incorporated Cree Villages, or will it be about "villages of the Cree".......??Skookum1 (talk) 14:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Seat

I've removed that from the title of the last column as wholly inappropriate; it may be appropriate to say that Newmarket is the seat of York County, or Sydney is the seat of Cape Breton REgional Municipality (in that last case I doubt it), but it's a terminology that has no meaning west of the Great Lakes or in other provinces that don't have counties.Skookum1 (talk) 13:13, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Will this article be moved, or simply overwritten, when 2011 results come in?

Will this article be moved to List of census divisions of Canada by population, 2006 and a new article for 2011 created? Or will it simply be overwritten with 2011 results?

The reason I ask is because there were some name changes (eg, Minganie–Basse-Côte-Nord and Lajemmerais Regional County Municipality, Quebec), so if the 2006 results should be preserved, the link text should reflect the old names, whereas if the article will be overwritten then we can forget the old names. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 15:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Overwritten, and the results are in. Hwy43 (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify, we wouldn't overwrite this article in the sense that the 2006 figures would be removed; like most of the other demographic lists, the 2011 figures would be added as the new primary data column (with the divisions resorted by new rank order as needed), while the 2006 figures would still be kept in the article as a supplementary column of data. The point of this is to allow past-present comparison, which can't happen if we just kill the 2006 figures or hive them off to a separate page of their own; for the couple of divisions whose name has changed, it's easy enough to just add a footnote or some other kind of clarification. As it stands right now, it's just a question of if and when somebody actually gets around to adding the 2011 figures. Bearcat (talk) 22:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Hwy43 (talk) 00:12, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I also agree ...one article with comparative numbers is best.Moxy (talk) 00:20, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The last column also needs to be removed. It is unreferenced and is original research. Hwy43 (talk) 05:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no, the "Hierarchy" tab of each Census Profile at the StatCan site shows the principal populated places in each census division. So it is "referenceable". -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 17:02, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad there is something referenceable. I've changed the column heading to "Largest census subdivision" instead of "Contains" as the latter may invite future editors to add more that one to any given census division. Given that, the entries within the column should be verified now that the 2011 results are out. Hwy43 (talk) 18:14, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I used "Contains" precisely to skirt the issue of whether the given subdivision was in fact "guaranteed" to be the most populous, although I think in nearly all of the cases it will be. I think the primary purpose is simply to give a sense of the geographic location, especially for those (several) provinces where everything is just a numbered division. But you do have a point, we don't want more than one entry in that column. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 02:09, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

"Most populous" works as that was my intent behind "Largest". Thinking more about this, the consequence of listing the most populated will result in numerous divisions being represented by rural census subdivisions that will be less recognizable than the smaller urban census subdivisions that would be more recognizable (i.e., Division No. 3, Alberta would be represented by Willow Creek No. 26, Alberta). Therefore, giving a sense of geographic location might not be achieved for these. In other words, if the column is to stay as titled, we may lose the sense of geographic location for some of the divisions. Yet if were to deviate from the most populous to something that is more indicative of geographic location, we are back to the concern of original research and entries based on opinions as to which census subdivision is the most notable to indicate geographic location, which will vary from editor to editor. This predicament is another reason why dropping the column entirely might be a viable solution. Hwy43 (talk) 03:41, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

But the column contains useful information. "Division 15" just doesn't tell you anything. I changed it to "Illustrative census subdivision" (could also be "Representative census subdivision", or perhaps "Indicative"), along with a footnote that explains what its purpose is. I think that handles the "singular" part without presenting any guarantee about "largest" or "most populous"). -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 14:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed that "Division 15" doesn't tell us anything. I'd much prefer "most populous" as it can be referenced and because the current content is OR. The solution to this should be changing the content within the column to something that can be referenced (my 1st preference) or deleting it (my 2nd preference), not naming the column in a manner that endorses retaining the OR. By going with "most populous", we'd just have to stomach that Greenview No. 16, Alberta would be one to represent Division No. 18, Alberta instead of Grande Cache, Alberta. The article for each census division should list all census subdivisions within and include a map to provide geographic context (not sure if that is the case across the country). I'm willing to stomach this and to participate in updating the column accordingly. Hwy43 (talk) Hwy43 (talk) 07:10, 14 March 2012 (UTC)