Greater Toronto Area - Demographics

Demographics

According to the latest census data from 2011 from Statistics Canada, the population of this area is 6,054,191. Population growth studies have projected the City of Toronto's population in 2031 to be 3,000,000 and the Greater Toronto Area's population to be 7,450,000, while the Ontario Ministry of Finance states that it could reach 7.7 million by 2025. Statistics Canada identified in 2001 that four major urban regions in Canada exhibited a cluster pattern of concentrated population growth among which included the Greater Golden Horseshoe Census Region, which includes all of the Greater Toronto Area (which includes Oshawa), as well as other Southern Ontario cities including Niagara, Hamilton, Guelph, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo and Barrie. Combined, the Greater Golden Horseshoe has a population of 8,116,000 in 2006, containing approximately 25% of Canada's population.

The Toronto CMA also has the largest proportions of foreign-born residents (46%) as a share of the total population out of all metropolitan areas in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The Toronto region is also unusually diverse over the composition of its ethnicities. The four largest foreign born populations of Toronto only constitute 15% of the total foreign-born population. This is opposed to the four largest foreign born populations of other metropolitan areas such as New York and London, where they make up 25% of their respective foreign-born populations.

Statistics Canada also found that there were 31,910 Aboriginal people living in the Greater Toronto Area, which represented 2.7 per cent of all Aboriginal persons in Canada and 13.2 per cent of those in Ontario. The majority of which however are not registered with the Indian reserves within the Greater Toronto Area, the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation and the Mississaugas of Scugog Island.