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Jakub Blady
Jakub Blady

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Where Do 40 Million Canadians Actually Live?

We all know Canada is huge. But when you render its population as 3D spikes rising from the surface, the answer becomes visceral. Almost everyone lives in a narrow strip hugging the US border.

I built this map using R and rayshader. Each spike represents population density in a given hexagonal cell. Taller and darker = more people.

Canada Population Density Spike Map

What Stands Out

  • The Golden Horseshoe (Toronto area) towers over everything. Nearly 1 in 4 Canadians lives here.
  • Montreal dominates Quebec as a clear second peak.
  • Vancouver is squeezed between the Pacific and the mountains.
  • Calgary–Edmonton forms a visible dual-spike corridor in Alberta.
  • Everything north of ~55°N is essentially flat. Millions of square kilometers, almost nobody.

~90% of Canadians live within 200 km of the US border.

How It's Made

Data: Kontur Population Dataset H3 hexagonal grid with population counts.

This map is part of a larger project (Public Tender Search Engine) Wyszukiwarka przetargów , where we use data visualization and geospatial analysis to explore public procurement and demographic data across countries.

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