Looking for some help in regards to census tract analysis. PLEASE HELP.

[Eric City]

Hey!

I am in the middle of Toronto CMA analysis using census tract data and have hit a wall in regards to the 1961 + 1971 totals for toronto as a whole. If anyone knows the "code" for toronto totals for these census years, please help.

problem example.

comparing danforth village using "81-85" (these numbers being the tracts), and all of toronto (i used "0" as the tract number and got totals for all the CMA combined) but for the 1961 + 1971 census, "0" for toronto wont work. I need to find these totals and have no idea where to look.

cheers to anyone that has any idea of what I am speaking about, and can help me.

eric

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

The issue you are running into is that census codes (just as census tracts and subdivisions) are not consistent over time. What may be one code in one census, may not be so in another. Since you're dealing with the 1961 and 1971 censuses, I suspect this is in fact the case, as due to population growth and other factors census tracts are often split into two or three where there was previously one, thus altering the codes. What you need to do is to go to a library that has a full set of print census volumes, and consult them by either opening up the maps or consulting the tables. There are some historic data online, but you need to be associated with an academic institution that is part of the DLI (Data Liberation Initiative) in order to obtain access.

In your case, I don't think the "0" in the codes was used pre-1971, I believe it only came into use during the 1980s (perhaps only until the 1991 census), so naturally you wouldn't know which code belonged to which tract, and so that's why you need the print volumes.