This chart shows census counts for the City of Toronto from 1861 to 2021. The line breaks between 1971 and 1991 because the municipality changed in 1998, when the former Metropolitan Toronto was amalgamated into one city: counts before and after that year do not describe the same area.
Reading the numbers
Census counts for the City of Toronto as the municipality was defined at each census. From 1881 to 1941 the figures are the old city, back-adjusted by Statistics Canada to its 1941 area; 1951 to 1971 are the old city as bounded at each census. In 1998 the six municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto were amalgamated into one city, so the figures from 1991 are for the larger present-day city, and the jump from 712,786 in 1971 to 2,275,771 in 1991 is a change of boundary, not growth in people. Counts for 1976 to 1986 are left out because no source read for this table gave them on a clear, consistent boundary, and 1851 and 1871 are left out because the sources read did not agree or gave only a rounded figure. Counts are not adjusted for undercoverage. Sources: Statistics Canada (Canada Year Book) and City of Toronto census backgrounders.
Sources
The figures come from published census tables: Canada Year Books for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the City of Toronto’s census backgrounders for recent censuses. Each row in the table names its source. Census years that could not be checked against a table are left out instead of estimated. For the 2021 figures and for languages and immigration, see the article on immigration and the population article in the Toronto facts section.
Related reading
Last verified: October 2026