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Census: more singles than people in relationships in Nelson

The data, which also includes families and languages, was released Wednesday by Statistics Canada
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There’s more singles in Nelson than couples, according to the latest census release. Photo: Thinkstock/Getty Images

Nelson is a city of singles according to the latest census release.

There are 4,510 single people living in Nelson, more than the 3,270 married people or 1,195 in common law relationships. That runs counter to the national average, which lists 16.8 million people married or common law as opposed to 12.4 million singles.

Those numbers were released Wednesday by Statistics Canada as part of the 2016 census program’s data focused on families, marital status and languages. Previous releases included population and dwelling counts, age and sex, types of dwellings and agriculture.

Nelson’s results also show the average family size is 2.7, just below the national average of 2.9. There are 460 couples with one child, 445 with two children and 111 with three or more.

There are also 435 female single parents as opposed to 140 males.

Related: Census: Nelson’s population up 3.3%

Language data is somewhat more obvious — 10,075 people identify English as their first official language as opposed to 275 French speakers.

More surprising are numbers showing the mother tongues spoken in Nelson.

Outside Canada’s official languages, German is the most spoken language in Nelson at 140 people. Russian follows at 105, along with 85 speakers of Italian, 45 people who speak Cantonese, 40 people who speak Tagalog, which is used in the Philippines, and 30 Punjabi speakers.

The data also lists just five speakers of Indigenous languages in Nelson, although it doesn’t specify which languages those are.

The next census release on Sept. 13 focuses on income.



Tyler Harper

About the Author: Tyler Harper

I’m editor-reporter at the Nelson Star, where I’ve worked since 2015.
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