Here’s what Statistics Canada found after dividing Ottawa and Gatineau into 277 census tracts. First, the big breakdown — the census recorded a 5.8 per cent gain for Ottawa alone (to 924,243 ...

Once again, an area of the Downtown Eastside is Canada’s poorest census tract, with a median income of under $18,000. The region’s next-poorest tracts are next door, and in Langley and Richmond.

Census tracts are generally drawn to cover a population between 2,500 to 8,000 people. ZIP code 20902 in Montgomery County, for example, covers more than 48,000 people.

In most ZIP codes throughout the region, more than half the households have responded to the census. Census forms were mailed, in March, to most U.S. households known to be occupied.

In seven communities, more than 90% of census tracts would have failed the 2006 standards: Peterborough, St. John’s, Thunder Bay, St.-Catharines-Niagara, Kelowna, and Saint John, NB.