Friday, April 17, 2015

Dissemination Area - Census of Population

Question

I have a faculty member here at Acadia who is interested in getting Census of Population - dissemination area units - for Ontario only, for 1996, 2001, and 2006. He would like all of the variables to be included.

A few years ago he was retrieved Census of Population FSA data, but found that the area unit wasn’t small enough for his research.

After digging through the EFT & Nesstar it became clear that Census units this small wouldn’t be readily available to me. Is there a way I can get a hold of this data, or will he have to request it directly through Stats Can?

Answer

They should all be available. Check out the aggregated data files listed below to see if they have what he needs:

For 1996 – you’ll be getting enumeration areas, not dissemination areas
- /MAD_DLI/Root/census_pop_recens/1996/profile-b2020/ea
- 95f0185sdbont.zip

For 2001 – DAs
- /MAD_DLI/Root/census_pop_recens/2001/B2020/Profiles/cumulative-electronic-profiles-b2020/ont/
- 95f0495xcb01002-ont-ivt.zip

For 2006 – Das
- /MAD_DLI/Root/census_pop_recens/2006/Profiles/complete-cumulative- profile/b2020
- 94-581-xcb2006002v2-ivt.zip

If he is looking for microdata, he’s out of luck – the most detailed census geography available is either CSD or CT, and only on the files in the Research Data Centres, I believe.