Newfoundland and Labrador - Demography

Demography

Newfoundland and Labrador has a population of 514,536, more than half of which lives on the Avalon Peninsula. In recent years the population of the province has started to increase for the first time since the early 1990s. In the 2006 census the population of the province decreased by 1.5% and stood at 505,469. However by the 2011 census the population had risen by 1.8%.

Population of Newfoundland and Labrador since 1951

Source: Statistics Canada

The largest single religious denomination by number of adherents according to the 2001 census was the Roman Catholic Church, at 36.9% of the province's population (187,405 members). The major Protestant denominations make up 59.7% of the population, with the largest group being the Anglican Church of Canada at 26.1% of the total population (132,680 members), the United Church of Canada at 17.0% (86,420 members), and the Salvation Army at 7.9% (39,955 members), with other Protestant denominations in much smaller numbers. The Pentecostal churches made up 6.7% of the population with 33,840 members. Non-Christians made up only 2.7% of the total population, with the majority of those respondents indicating "no religion" (2.5% of the total population).

According to the 2001 Canadian census, the largest ethnic group in Newfoundland and Labrador is English (39.4%), followed by Irish (19.7%), Scottish (6.0%), French (5.5%), and First Nations (3.2%). While half of all respondents also identified their ethnicity as "Canadian," 38% report their ethnicity as "Newfoundlander" in a 2003 Statistics Canada Ethnic Diversity Survey.