That smaller city to the north — you know, the one with the legislature and that megamall — is now growing at a faster clip than booming Calgary.

There are 877,926 Edmontonians, according to the city’s 2014 census released Friday. While that remains a far cry from Calgary’s nearly 1.2 million, the capital’s two-year growth rate of 7.4 per cent is greater than Stampede City’s 6.7 per cent.

While each city is being propelled by the energy boom, Edmonton is faring better in job creation than the city where the corporate headquarters are, said ATB Financial economist Todd Hirsch.

“It’s orders of magnitude. Both cities are kind of the envy of the nation,” he said Friday. “But Edmonton’s unemployment rate is just a touch lower, a lot of service jobs around the oilpatch.”

Edmonton is also likely helped by its housing affordability edge, Hirsch added.

The northern city’s population increased by just over 60,000 from the previous census in 2012. It’s like gaining a city the size of St. Albert in two years.

“It’s a big number, bigger than we thought and that’s an exciting thing for us,” said Mayor Don Iveson. “Looking at these numbers, it won’t be long before we overtake Ottawa to be the fourth largest municipality in the country.

It’s also growing more quickly than Alberta as a whole.

“Without a doubt, Edmonton is growing up,” said Iveson. “It’s a forward-looking, youthful, cosmopolitan, confident city that competes globally for people, for investment and for fun.”

If Edmonton continues growing at this pace, it will top one million people in 2018 — a milestone Calgary surpassed in the 2007 population count.

If both Calgary and Edmonton each somehow keep growing at their respective rates — for argument’s sake, setting aside their boom-bust cycles and sheer urban capacity for the sake of argument — the capital would be on track to become Alberta’s largest city in 2110, when Edmonton becomes first to hit 27 million. Ottawa is the next largest city in Canada. The 2011 federal census found their population was 883,391, but the city’s internal estimates place their population at 944,900 in 2014.

The last municipal census was held in 2012, when Edmonton had 817,498 people. That was a 4.5 per cent increase from 2009, when the city had a population of 782,439.

Calgary’s populaion grew by an unprecedented 38,508 people between 2013 and 2014. It’s been the most populous Alberta city since the 1970s, although Edmonton has much larger municipalities like St. Albert and Stratcona County. directly on its edges.

jmarkusoff@calgaryherald.com