Demographics of British Columbia


Population of British Columbia 5.071 million
Percentage of National Population: 13.2%
Population Growth Rate: 5.6%

Vital statistics

Death rate: 2.3 deaths per 1,000
Infant mortality rate: 4.0 deaths per 1,000 live births
Life expectancy at birth: 81.12 years
Total fertility rate: 1.4 children born per woman

Population of British Columbia since 1851

YearPopulationFive year
% change		Ten year
% change		Rank among
provinces
185155,000n/an/an/a
186151,524n/a-6.3n/a
187136,247n/a-29.77
188149,459n/a36.48
189198,173n/a98.58
1901178,657n/a82.06
1911392,480n/a119.76
1921524,582n/a33.76
1931694,263n/a32.36
1941817,861n/a17.84
19511,165,210n/a42.53
19561,398,46420.0n/a3
19611,629,08216.539.83
19661,873,67415.034.03
19712,184,62016.634.13
19762,466,61012.931.63
19812,744,46711.325.63
19862,883,3705.116.93
19913,282,06113.819.63
19963,724,50013.529.23
20013,907,7384.919.13
20064,113,4875.410.43
20114,400,0577.012.63
20164,648,0555.613.03

Age structure

Ethnicity

British Columbia has a very diverse ethnic population. First-generation immigrants from the British Isles remain a strong component of local society despite limitations on immigration from Britain since the ending of special status for British subjects in the 1960s. Also present in large numbers relative to other cities in Canada, and also present in BC ever since the province was first settled, are many European ethnicities of the first and second generation, notably Germans, Ukrainians, Scandinavians, Yugoslavs and Italians; third-generation Europeans are generally of mixed lineage, and traditionally intermarried with other ethnic groups more than in any other Canadian province.
In recent decades, the proportion of those of Chinese and Indian ethnicity has risen sharply, though still outnumbered by the historically-strong population of those of German ancestry. Visible minorities have become an important factor in ethnic-based politics, though most visible minorities are less numerous than the long-standing non-British European ethnicities making up BC's "invisible minorities".
Note: The following statistics represent both single and multiple responses to the 2006 and 2016 Census, and thus add up to more than 100%.
Ethnic OriginPopulation Percent Population Percent
English1,203,54026.39%1,207,24529.63%
Canadian866,53019%720,20017.67%
Scottish860,77518.88%828,14520.32%
Irish675,13514.80%618,12015.17%
German603,26513.23%561,57013.78%
Chinese540,15511.84%432,43510.60%
French388,8158.53%361,2158.86%
Indian309,3156.78%232,3705.70%
Ukrainian229,2055.03%197,2654.84%
First Nations220,2454.83%193,0604.74%
Dutch 213,6704.69%196,4204.82%
Italian166,0953.64%143,1553.51%
Polish149,6353.28%128,3603.15%
Norwegian138,4303.04%129,4203.18%
Russian131,0602.87%114,1052.80%
Welsh113,9052.5%104,2752.56%
Swedish110,0302.41%104,0252.55%
Filipino158,2153.47%94,2552.3%
Métis90,5151.98%62,5701.5%
American 78,1701.71%66,7651.6%
Spanish64,4701.41%52,6401.3%
Korean63,3001.39%51,8601.3%
Danish58,2051.28%56,1251.4%
Hungarian 56,5351.24%49,8701.2%
Japanese51,1501.12%41,5851.0%
Austrian48,5101.06%46,6201.1%
Iranian47,9851.05%29,2650.7%
Portuguese41,7700.92%34,6600.9%
Vietnamese41,4350.91%30,8350.8%
Punjabi38,7250.85%18,5250.5%
Finnish34,1500.75%29,8750.7%
Swiss31,3900.69%28,2400.7%
Romanian31,2500.69%25,6700.6%
Icelandic26,4100.58%22,1100.5%
Greek24,4600.54%21,7700.5%
Croatian23,8450.52%18,8150.5%
Czech23,3750.51%21,1500.5%
Belgian19,9800.44%17,5100.4%
Jewish17,5800.39%30,8300.8%

Projections

Indo-Canadians

Visible minorities and Aboriginal Peoples

Migration

Immigration

A large number of immigrants have lived in British Columbia for 30 years or less.

Interprovincial Migration

British Columbia has also traditionally been gaining from interprovincial migration. Over the last 50 years, British Columbia had 12 years of negative interprovincial immigration: the lowest in the country. The only time the province significantly lost population to this phenomenon was during the 1990s, when it had a negative interprovincial migration for 5 consecutive years.
In-migrantsOut-migrantsNet migration
2009–10 49,469 40,741 8,728
2010–11 47,854 44,433 3,421
2011–12 48,593 51,304 −2,711
2012–13 43,830 45,698 −1,868
2013–14 52,281 42,806 9,475
2014–15 61,026 40,647 20,379
2015–16 63,788 37,215 26,573
2016–17 57,210 38,376 18,834
2017–18 55,300 41,311 13,989
2018–19 55,612 49,501 6,111
2019–20 71,180 61,122 10,058

Source: Statistics Canada

Religions

The largest denominations by number of adherents according to the 2011 census were Christianity with 1,930,415 ; Irreligion with 1,908,285 ; Sikhism with 201,110 ; Buddhism with 90,620; Islam with 79,310 ; and Hinduism with 45,795.

Languages

Knowledge of languages

The question on knowledge of languages allows for multiple responses. The following figures are from the 2016 Canadian Census, and lists languages that were selected by at least one per cent of respondents.
LanguageResponses%
English4,560,23596.60
French314,2256.89
Mandarin265,6355.83
Punjabi244,4855.36
Cantonese234,4455.14
Spanish115,1152.52
Tagalog113,2652.48
German95,0052.08
Hindi81,3301.78
Korean57,4901.26
Persian49,8351.09

Mother tongue

Figures shown are for the number of single language responses and the percentage of total single-language responses. Numerous other languages were also counted, but only languages with more than 2,000 native speakers are shown.