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The latest census data came out Wednesday and, as can be expected, most people focused on the population and population growth for various cities, regions and provinces. It’s always interesting to see which communities are growing or declining and by how much.

But there was another data set that I found even more intriguing — and a bit depressing. The City of Vancouver topped the list of Canadian cities again for population density, a situation that now appears to be permanent.

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There were 5,492.6 persons, on average, in each of the city’s 114.97 square kilometres in 2016 — up from 5,249.1 persons per sq. km. in 2011 when the last census was conducted. That’s an average increase of 243.5 persons per sq. km or 27,995 individuals. The city’s population rose by 4.6 per cent, compared with the five-per-cent growth of Canada’s population and the 5.6-per-cent growth for B.C.

But what puts Vancouver’s high density in perspective is when you compare it with Canada’s other large cities. The density in Montreal is 4,662.1 persons per sq. km, while Toronto’s density is 4,334.4. That means that Vancouver, with a population in 2016 of 631,486, has a population density nearly 27-per-cent higher than Toronto’s, packing nearly 1,160 more people into each square kilometre than Canada’s largest city, home to 2,731,571 souls.