Technical specifications

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Software formats

Boundary Files for the 2006 Census are available for download from the Statistics Canada website in the following formats:

  • ESRI® format version 9.0
    •             File extension: .shp
  • MapInfo® format version 7.0
    •             File extension: .tab

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    Installation instructions

    The ESRI® and MapInfo® files are compressed into WinZip® files (file extension .zip).

    Some of the 2006 Boundary Files contain attributes with accented characters. These characters can be seen in UNIX and Windows® versions of ESRI® and MapInfo®. They were tested on desktop versions of ArcGIS® 9.2 and MapInfo® 7.0, 8.0 and 8.5.


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    Geographic representation

    The 2006 Boundary Files are available on the Statistics Canada website in the following geographic representation:

    Datum: NAD 83
    Coordinates: Latitude/Longitude

    To ensure calculations are relevant (e.g., to calculate land area), it is recommended that the latitude/longitude coordinates be transformed to an appropriate map projection.


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    Record layouts

    1. Province and Territory

    The Province and Territory Boundary File contains the boundaries of all 10 provinces and three territories. Province and territory refer to the major political units of Canada. From a statistical point of view, province and territory are basic areas for which data are tabulated.

    Table 5.1
    Record layouts - ESRI® (.shp) and MapInfo® (.tab) files
    Attribute name
    Data type
    Description
    FID
    		 Object ID (4) Specific to ESRI®
    Shape
    		 Geometry Specific to ESRI®
    PRUID
    		 char (2) Uniquely identifies a province or territory
    PRNAME
    		 char (100) Province or territory name
    PRENAME
    		 char (100) Province or territory name in English
    PRFNAME
    		 char (100) Province or territory name in French
    PREABBR
    		 char (10) English abbreviation of the province or territory name
    PRFABBR
    		 char (10)

    French abbreviation of the province or territory name

    WATER
    		 integer (1) Value of "1" for water and "0" for land

    2. Census division

    The Census Division Boundary File contains the boundaries of all 288 census divisions. A census division is an administrative area which is a component of the Standard Geographical Classification and is comprised of census subdivisions. Census division is the general term for provincially legislated areas (such as county, municipalité régionale de comté and regional district) or their equivalents. Census divisions are intermediate geographic areas between the province or territorial level and the municipality (census subdivision).

    Table 5.2
    Record layouts - ESRI® (.shp) and MapInfo® (.tab) files
    Attribute name
    Data type
    Description
    FID
    		 Object ID (4) Specific to ESRI®
    Shape
    		 Geometry Specific to ESRI®
    CDUID
    		 char (4) Uniquely identifies a census division (composed of the 2-digit province/territory code and the 2-digit census division code)
    DNAME
    		 char (100) Census division name
    CDTYPE
    		 char (3) Census division type (see Domain)
    PRUID
    		 char (2) Uniquely identifies a province or territory
    PRNAME
    		 char (100) Province or territory name
    WATER
    		 integer (1) Value of "1" for water and "0" for land

    Domain

    CDTYPE is a three-character field indicating the census division type.

    CDR    Census division/Division de recensement
    CT   County/Comté
    CTY   County
    DIS   District
    DM   District municipality
    MB   Management board
    MRC   Municipalité régionale de comté
    RD   Regional district
    REG   Region
    RM   Regional municipality
    TÉ   Territoire équivalent
    TER   Territory/Territoire
    UC   United counties

    3. Agricultural ecumene

    The agricultural ecumene boundary file contains polygons for each ecumene and non-ecumene pocket in Canada.

    Table 5.3
    Record layouts - ESRI® (.shp) and MapInfo® (.tab) files
    Attribute name
    Data type
    Description
    FID
    		 Object ID (4) Specific to ESRI®
    Shape
    		 Geometry Specific to ESRI®
    CDUID
    		 char (4) Uniquely identifies a census division (composed of the 2-digit province/territory code and the 2-digit census division code)
    CDNAME
    		 char (100) Census division name
    CDTYPE
    		 char (3) Census division type (see Domain)
    PRUID
    		 char (2) Uniquely identifies a province or territory
    PRNAME
    		 char (100) Province or territory name
    AGUID
    		 char (9) Uniquely identifies any of the standard geographic areas disseminated by the Census of Agriculture (composed of the 2-digit province or territory code, the 2-digit census agricultural region code, the 2-digit census division code and the 3-digit census consolidated subdivision code).
    ECUMENE
    		 integer (1) Value of "0" for ecumene land, value of "1" for water and value of "2" for non-ecumene land.