The Central Okanagan is the fastest growing area in Canada

Greater Kelowna is Canada’s fastest growing urban area and the city’s downtown is third fastest growing in the nation.

That comes according to new census data released from Statistics Canada on Wednesday.

The population in the Central Okanagan boomed from 194,892 in 2016 to 222,162 in 2021, growth of 14 per cent. This region includes Peachland, Lake Country, and West Kelowna.

In fact, four of the five fastest growing urban areas in Canada are in British Columbia. Following Kelowna is Chilliwack at 12 per cent, Nanaimo at 10 and Kamloops, also at 10 per cent. Rounding out the top five is London, Ont., also at 10 per cent.

StatsCan said most of the growth in B.C. is driven by people relocating from elsewhere in Canada.

B.C. recorded the second greatest population growth in Canada between 2016 and 2021. The population grew by 7.6 per cent, pushing it past 5 million people. It was only bested by Yukon, which grew by 12.1 per cent to 40,232.

British Columbia is the lone province in Western Canada to see more people move into the province from elsewhere in Canada than move out over that same period, with interprovincial migration gains of 97,424, the highest level since 1991 to 1996.

And while the nation saw its fastest pace of growth since the end of the 1980s over that five-year period, the pandemic essentially ground it to a halt. Canada's population grew by just 0.4 per cent from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2020 -- the slowest pace since the First World War, according to the agency.

Downtowns on the up

Petula Clark sings it best and more people than ever seem to agree: Things will be great when you’re downtown.

Data from StatsCan shows urban centres are blossoming, often outpacing growth of most cities overall. Downtown populations grew by an average of nearly 11 per cent from 2016 to 2021, compared to general growth of 6.1.

Just five years ago, urban cores only grew by 4.6 per cent

Halifax logged the greatest core growth at 26.1 per cent. It’s followed by Montreal at 24.2 per cent and Kelowna at 23.8.

Kelowna logs a population density of 3,280 people per sq/km downtown. This ranks the city in the middle of the pack nationally, and fifth in B.C., bested by Vancouver (18,837), Victoria (5,709), Abbotsford (4,059) and Chilliwack (3,444).

The data released Wednesday is the first in a series of releases slated for the vital statistics agency resulting from the 2021 census.