Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Cape Breton was a Census Division in Nova Scotia as recorded in the 1871–1921 Canadian census series. It comprised the constituent Census Subdivisions listed below for each year it appears in the published volumes. This CD is grounded to Wikidata Q2658942.

Population trajectory across census years

Aggregate population summed from constituent Census Subdivisions in this Census Division each year. Where the published 1851–1921 census volumes report a CD-level total, the figures should match within rounding; for cities split into wards, the per-CSD sum may diverge from the published CD aggregate.

Constituent Census Subdivisions by year

1871 census

• Ball’s Bridge (pop 2,268)
• Beaver Cove (pop 905)
• Big Pond wd (pop 743)
• Christmas Island (pop 1,315)
• Cow Bay (pop 1,986)
• East Bay (pop 2,090)
• Gabarus wd (pop 1,747)
• Howley’s Kerry (pop 1,156)
• Lingan Mines (pop 3,429)
• Louisburg, T-V wd (pop 1,446)
• Mainadieu (pop 1,594)
• Mira Bay (pop 944)
• Sydney N wd (pop 3,931)
• Sydney, Town—Ville wd (pop 2,900)

1881 census

• Ball’s Creek (pop 2,529)
• Big Pond wd (pop 702)
• Boisdale (pop 900)
• Boularderie (pop 1,359)
• Catalone (pop 835)
• Cow Bay (pop 2,117)
• East Bay N (pop 1,331)
• East Bay S (pop 665)
• Gabarus wd (pop 1,256)
• Grand Mira (pop 924)
• Grand Narrows wd (pop 1,464)
• Lingan (pop 4,125)
• Louisburg, T-V wd (pop 999)
• Main-à-Dieu (pop 990)
• North Mira (pop 1,030)
• Sydney N wd (pop 5,484)
• Sydney, Town—Ville wd (pop 3,667)
• Trout Brook (pop 881)

1891 census

• Ball’s Creek (pop 1,207)
• Big Pond wd (pop 476)
• Boisdale (pop 935)
• Boularderie (pop 1,305)
• Bridgeport (pop 2,166)
• Catalone (pop 781)
• Cow Bay (pop 2,104)
• East Bay N & S (pop 1,720)
• Gabarus wd (pop 1,339)
• Glace Bay, T-V wd (pop 2,459)
• Grand Mira (pop 758)
• Grand Narrows wd (pop 1,426)
• Hillside (pop 1,038)
• Leitche’s Creek (pop 1,195)
• Lingan (pop 1,868)
• Little Bras d'Or (pop 812)
• Loch Lomond (pop 382)
• Louisburg, T-V wd (pop 1,116)
• Main-à-Dieu (pop 1,001)
• North Sydney, T-V wd (pop 2,522)
• Sydney Forks (pop 1,230)
• Sydney Mines, T-V wd (pop 2,446)
• Sydney, Town—Ville wd (pop 2,427)
• Trout Brook (pop 902)
• Victoria (pop 629)

1901 census

• Ball Creek wd (pop 892)
• Bateston (pop 330)
• Big Pond wd (pop 419)
• Boisdale (pop 765)
• Boularderie (pop 1,073)
• Bridgeport (pop 5,945)
• Catalone (pop 345)
• East Bay, North—Nord (pop 502)
• East Bay, South—Sud (pop 529)
• Frenchvale (pop 560)
• Gabarus wd (pop 1,116)
• George River wd (pop 1,128)
• Glace Bay, T-V wd (pop 6,945)
• Grand Mira (pop 686)
• Grand Narrows wd (pop 1,424)
• Hillside (pop 954)
• Lingan (pop 825)
• Little Bras d'Or (pop 790)
• Loch Lomond (pop 296)
• Louisburg, T-V wd (pop 1,588)
• Main-à-Dieu (pop 757)
• North Sydney, Town—Ville wd (pop 4,646)
• Port Morien (pop 1,453)
• South Bar wd (pop 599)
• South Forks (pop 825)
• Sydney Mines, T-V wd (pop 3,191)
• Sydney, Town—Ville wd (pop 9,909)
• Trout Brook (pop 674)

1921 census

• Ball Creek wd (pop 1,469)
• Bateston (pop 206)
• Big Pond wd (pop 238)
• Boisdale (pop 566)
• Boularderie (pt.) (pop 1,071)
• Catalone (pop 216)
• Dominion No. 6 (pop 1,433)
• Dominion, T-V (pop 2,390)
• East Bay N. (pop 311)
• East Bay S. (pop 313)
• Enon (pop 168)
• Frenchvale (pop 325)
• Gabarus wd (pop 911)
• George River wd (pop 906)
• Glace Bay, T-V wd (pop 17,007)
• Grand Mira (pop 519)
• Grand Narrows wd (pop 1,017)
• Hillside (pop 809)
• Indian reserves (pop 270)
• Lingan (South Bar) (pop 2,045)
• Little Bras d'Or (pop 3,133)
• Louisburg Parish (pop 438)
• Louisburg, T-V wd (pop 1,152)
• Main-à-Dieu (pop 489)
• New Waterford, T-V wd (pop 5,615)
• North Sydney, T-V wd (pop 6,585)
• Port Morien (pop 1,996)
• Reserve (pop 2,010)
• South Forks (pop 1,397)
• Sydney Mines, T-V wd (pop 8,327)
• Sydney, C wd (pop 22,545)
• Trout Brook (pop 419)

Lineage

Boundary changes connecting this Census Division to others in the 1851–1921 series, derived from spatial polygon overlap across census-year boundary files.

• Split off from Nova Scotia in 1871.
• Split into Cape Breton South in 1911.
• Re-formed from Cape Breton South in 1921.

Identifiers

• HGIS Canada CD ID: CD_NS_Cape_Breton
• Wikidata: Q2658942
• Wikipedia (EN): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Breton_County
• Wikipédia (FR): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comt%C3%A9_de_Cap-Breton

Sources

Census Division boundaries derived from the Canadian Peoples / TCP 1851–1921 Census Subdivision boundary files (NAME_CD_<year> attributes, hosted at the HGIS Lab, University of Saskatchewan). Constituent-CSD memberships use the P10_falls_within CIDOC-CRM relationships emitted by the spatial CIDOC builder. Wikidata grounding for Census Divisions performed via the HGIS Canada Knowledge Graph project's MCP-assisted disambiguation pipeline. See the About / Methodology page for the full data pipeline.