Esri provides CensusPlus, an advanced demographics dataset, for Canada sourced from data supplied by Environics Analytics. Visit Where to find ArcGIS Data to learn more about using advanced demographics.
CensusPlus is an authoritative catalog of the Canadian population based on data collected during the 2021 Census by Statistics Canada. It includes basic demographic information about people and households: sex, age, family status such as Census families, language spoken, dwelling structural type, and income, including populations living in collective or institutional dwellings.
The CensusPlus dataset also includes some expanded categories, such as family households by family structure or size, household population by age, and children at home in five-year age groups. New themes added with the 2021 Census include more religion categories, population in 1-year age cohorts, educational attainment, classes of worker, and transportation.
The CensusPlus dataset is adjusted for random rounding and data suppression by Statistics Canada—which was applied to ensure the privacy of census respondents—while adhering to the content or substance of the original census. This ensures that there are no missing values in CensusPlus and the variables add up within thematic categories and across levels of geography.
Release dates
The CensusPlus dataset was updated in October 2025; the vintage is 2021.
Base level geography
CensusPlus variables are available at the dissemination area base level geography.
Sample questions and use cases
Sample questions that can be answered using CensusPlus data may include the following:
- What is the population breakdown by age within my trade area?
- How many women aged 25 to 34 live in the Calgary CMA?
- What can the data reveal about the demographics within my trade area?
- How many households in Canada speak Italian at home?
- Which municipalities have an average household income over $100,000?
Example use cases for CensusPlus include the following:
 | Advertisers can use the CensusPlus demographic data to analyze custom trade areas to help locate attractive target markets for more effective direct mail campaigns. |
 | Retailers can enhance their customer databases with demographic profiles to better understand their customers. The CensusPlus multicultural data can also help users analyze their customers to make more informed decisions about how to meet their needs. |
 | Creating target sets by grouping together demographically similar customer segments can help marketing strategists develop meaningful messaging that is more likely to resonate with current and prospective customers. |
Related links
Refer to the following content:
- See Canada Related links for Esri's Canadian release notes and variable lists.
- See the Environics Analytics CensusPlus and DemoStats article for more information from the data source.