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In Ontario, St. Catharines-Niagara, Windsor, Sudbury and Kingston are the most drinker-friendly cities with 1.2 to 2.0 watering holes for every 10,000 people, according to Statistics Canada.

Ottawa was more well-watered than cities such as Toronto, Hamilton, London, Oshawa and Guelph, all of which had less than 1.0 drinking places for every 10,000.

The same map also showed that Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador were the provinces most heavily populated by bars and taverns on a per-capita basis.

Statistics Canada analyst Jamie Brunet produced the information map based on data collected as part of a national count of the country’s businesses. He said the map has to be read with some caution since the data does not consider the size of a bar or tavern.

“Any differences could be saying as much about the kinds of drinking establishments in different places as much as anything else,” Brunet warned. “Maybe some places tend to have larger bars, or ones that are more often combined with restaurants.”

Still, the Statistics Canada map of bars and taverns squares with some previous studies of Canadian drinking habits. In July 2010, for instance, a study published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health revealed that Maritimers tended to drink more daily and binge more often than other Canadians. Drinkers in Quebec turn to wine more often than those in any other province.

According to the data table on which Statistics Canada’s bar map is based, Canada has an average of 1.4 drinking establishments for every 10,000 people. Newfoundland and Labrabor (3.9), Quebec, (2.7) and New Brunswick (2.1) were the only provinces that topped the national average.

The rankings of cities with the most bars, taverns and brasseries reflect those numbers. According to Statistics Canada, the cities with the most bars by pop are Sherbrooke (3.2), St. John’s (3.1), Trois-Rivières (2.8), Saguenay (2.8), Saint John (2.6), Moncton (2.4), Montréal (2.3), Québec City (2.0) and Kelowna (2.0).

Ottawa-Gatineau (1.1) had more bars and taverns for every 10,000 than some other major Canadian cities, such as Toronto (0.82), Winnipeg (0.99), Regina (0.99) and Calgary (0.88).