SimplyAnalytics
SimplyAnalytics is a web-based mapping platform that TMU students, faculty, and staff can access with their university credentials to turn census data into ready-to-share maps, tables, and reports. After creating a free account, you can explore more than 200 000 Canadian variables, including Canadian census data, demographics, household expenditure, business locations and daytime population estimates. The interface lets you pick a variety of census geographies, add variables onto the map, and export high-resolution images, spreadsheets, or shapefiles for deeper GIS work.
CHASS – Census Profiles
CHASS (Computing in the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Toronto) hosts ready-made Census Profile tables for every Canadian census year back to 1971. Search by geography—dissemination area, census tract, CMA, province—and download detailed demographic, social, and economic variables in CSV or Excel. Pair these tables with the matching boundary files below to create custom maps in QGIS, ArcGIS, or SimplyAnalytics.
Boundaries
Accurate mapping starts with the right polygons. Statistics Canada’s “Cartographic Boundary” and “Digital Boundary” shapefiles (DA, CT, CSD, CMA, etc.) can be downloaded free from the Statistics Canada website or Scholars GeoPortal. Import these layers into your GIS, join them to census tables by geographic code, and you’re ready to style choropleth or dot-density maps. Tip: use the “cartographic” versions for faster drawing and smaller file sizes.
US Census
For cross border or comparative projects, use the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) data and TIGER/Line shapefiles. The free IPUMS NHGIS service bundles ACS tables with matching boundaries in one download, making it easy to map U.S. demographic, housing, and economic indicators alongside Canadian data.