Demographics of Ontario


, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province by a large margin, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all Canadians, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto.

Vital statistics

Death Rate: 7.1/1,000 people
Life Expectancy at birth: 81 years
Infant Mortality rate: 5.2

Historic populations

YearPopulation5 year
% change		10 year
% change		% Canadian
population
1824150,066--n/a
1830213,156--n/a
1840432,159-102.7%39.93%
1851952,004--51.32%
18611,396,091-46.6%55.58%
18711,620,851-16.1%43.9%
18811,926,922-18.8%45.4%
18912,114,321-9.7%48.9%
19012,182,947-3.2%40.6%
19112,527,292-15.8%35.1%
19212,933,662-16.1%33.4%
19313,431,683-17.0%33.1%
19413,787,655-10.4%32.9%
19514,597,542-21.3%32.8%
19565,404,93317.6%-33.6%
19616,236,09215.4%35.6%34.2%
19666,960,87011.6%28.8%34.9%
19717,703,10510.7%23.5%35.7%
19768,264,4657.3%18.7%35.9%
19818,625,1074.4%12.0%35.4%
19869,101,6955.5%10.1%36.0%
199110,084,88510.8%16.9%36.9%
199610,753,57310.7%18.2%37.3%
200111,410,0466.1%13.2%38.0%
200612,160,2826.6%13.1%38.4%
201112,851,8215.7%12.6%38.4%
201613,448,4944.6%9.6%38.3%

Source: Statistics Canada

Visible minorities and Aboriginals

There is a striking difference between the Toronto CMA and the rest of Ontario ; in particular, in the Toronto CMA visible minorities account for 51.4% of the population, whereas in the rest of the Toronto the percentage of visible minorities in the overall population is much lower, at 11.8%. Back in 1996,1,338,095 of 4,232,905 Toronto CMA residents belonged to a visible minority, i.e. 31.6% of its population; regarding the rest of Ontario, only 343,950 of its 6,409,885 residents, i.e. 5.4%, were visible minorities.

Ethnic groups

As of 2016 census.
Ethnic groupResponses%
Canadian3,109,77023.48
English2,808,81021.21
Scottish2,107,29015.91
Irish2,095,46515.82
French1,349,25510.19
German1,189,6708.98
Italian931,8057.04
Chinese849,3406.41
East Indian774,4955.85
Dutch 527,7503.99
Polish523,4903.95
North American Indian385,5052.91
Ukrainian376,4402.84
Filipino337,7602.55
Portuguese324,9302.45
British, not included
elsewhere		323,1802.44
Jamaican257,0551.94
Russian220,8501.67
Welsh198,4701.50
Spanish171,1451.29
Hungarian 163,5001.23
Pakistani149,0601.13
Greek148,5551.12
American 140,1651.06
Métis137,4851.04

Note: The table takes dual responses. Some places of one's ethnic origin do not refer to a single specified country of origin, i.e. Spanish refers to people from Spanish speaking countries such as Colombia, Spain, Mexico, Cuba and others; or East Indian where the respondents origin could be from Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, etc.; and the list contains about 200 nationalities known to reside in the province. However, there are options for the respondent to identify the country alone.

Future Projections

Migration

Immigration

is a very diverse province. For example, 54.8% of the population of Toronto was born outside Canada, which is the second-largest percentage of immigrants in a single city on Earth, after Miami. Hamilton is ranked the third-most diverse urbanized area in Canada.

Interprovincial Migration

Ontario's interprovincial migration rate have shifted over they years. It was negative in the 1970s, positive in the 1980s, but then negative again in the 1990s. It went back to the positive in around the time of the turn of the millennium for a few years, but has been in the negatives constantly from 2003 to 2015, and has been in the positives since then. Over the period from 1971 to 2015, Ontario was the province who experience the second lowest levels of interprovincial in-migration and out-migration, second only to Quebec.
In-migrantsOut-migrantsNet migration
2008–0957,45873,059−15,601
2009–1059,74164,403−4,662
2010–1158,31762,324−4,007
2011–1260,45971,070−10,611
2012–1354,67868,579−13,901
2013–1457,41571,979−14,564
2014–1562,87471,569−8,695
2015–1671,79062,7139,077
2016–1771,71758,33513,382
2017–1869,91859,9749,944
2018–1977,28165,55011,731
2019–2097,03189,2107,821

Source: Statistics Canada

Language

The following figures are from the 2016 census. The tables includes languages that were selected by at least 0.99 per cent of respondents. Respondents to the census are able to provide multiple responses for questions relating to knowledge of languages, and mother tongue.

Knowledge of languages

LanguageResponses%
English12,879,04597.26
French1,521,02011.49
Mandarin385,4522.91
Cantonese341,8752.58
Spanish337,6152.55
Italian333,6452.52
Punjabi282,0652.13
Hindi250,0951.89
Arabic246,0151.86
Tagalog232,9351.76
Urdu231,5001.75
Portuguese193,5201.46
German189,0351.43
Tamil157,7001.19
Persian145,4651.10
Polish142,9851.08

Mother tongue

Religious groups

ReligionPeople%
Total12,651,795100
Christian8,167,29564.6
No Religious Affiliation2,927,79023.1
Muslim581,9504.6
Hindu366,7202.9
Jewish195,5401.5
Sikh179,7651.4
Buddhist163,7501.3
Traditional Aboriginal 15,9050.1
Other Religions53,0800.4

Source: Statistics Canada
StatsCan 2011 National Household Survey

Census Metropolitan Areas

As regards ethnic origins and CMA of highest concentration :
Ethnic OriginCMA% of population
ChineseToronto12.0
East IndianToronto11.0
FilipinoToronto4.7
JamaicanToronto3.4
RussianToronto2.4
PakistaniToronto2.1
Sri LankanToronto2.0
SpanishToronto1.8
GreekToronto1.7
IranianToronto1.7
KoreanToronto1.3
Other African origins, n.i.eToronto1.1
JewishToronto1.0
HaitianOttawa-Gatineau1.1
CroatianHamilton1.9
GermanKitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo21.8
PortugueseKitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo4.1
RomanianKitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo1.9
SwissKitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo1.5
BelgianLondon1.1
LebaneseWindsor3.3
IraqiWindsor2.2
AmericanWindsor1.7
SerbianWindsor1.4
Arab, n.o.s.Windsor1.0
British Isles origins, n.i.e.Barrie3.7
CanadianGreater Sudbury45.6
FrenchGreater Sudbury37.7
VietnameseGuelph1.6
DutchBrantford8.0
HungarianBrantford3.2
EnglishPeterborough39.1
IrishPeterborough32.5
ScottishPeterborough26.3
WelshPeterborough2.6
ItalianThunder Bay14.0
UkrainianThunder Bay13.5
FinnishThunder Bay11.4
First NationsThunder Bay10.5
PolishThunder Bay7.1
SwedishThunder Bay4.5
MétisThunder Bay2.9
NorwegianThunder Bay2.8
SlovakThunder Bay2.0
DanishThunder Bay1.1