Population of Toronto area over 6 million for first time

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According to new data released yesterday from Statistics Canada, the population of Toronto has smashed the six-million mark - 6,055,724 people, to be precise. That's up 8.4% from 2011's tally of 5,583,064. The Toronto census metropolitan area (which includes a number of surrounding towns) now holds more people than all of British Columbia, twice as many residents as the Atlantic provinces combined, and 55 times the population of Canada's northern territories.

The main driver in population growth - as it is for all Canadian cities, Stats Canada points out - is international immigration. New Canadians settling in Toronto accounted for 79,500 new residents, or 31% of the total for Canada. But we're not the fastest-growing cities in Canada; those would be Calgary and Edmonton, who are tied for first.

Photo by Mauricio Calero via the blogTO Flickr pool.

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