Digital Boundary Files

1991 was the first census that an enumeration area (EA) boundary file was available as a standard geography product. All other digital boundary files are created by aggregating the component enumeration area boundaries.

Since these digital boundaries reflect the actual boundaries required to enumerate all the households in Canada, boundaries running through water bodies (such as lakes and oceans) may appear as straight lines, rather than following the shoreline. Thus the Digital Boundary Files may not be suitable for mapping applications where realistic shoreline is important, or for analysis requiring the compilation of real land area. (Source: Geo bulletin vol. 1(9), Dec. 1992 p. 3 & 1991 Census catalogue (STC 92-302) p. 156)

Digital Cartographic Files

The Digital cartographic files are similar to the Digital boundary files, but the boundaries are modified to follow the coastlines and shorelines on the perimeter of Canada's land mass, including major islands. The DCFs include a separate map layer showing lakes, some rivers, and some estuaries. This 'water' layer can be used for additional reference purposes when mapping or displaying the boundaries. Boundaries and bodies of water are depicted as polygons.

The Skeletal street network files (SSNFs) exist for areas covered by the Street network files (SNFs) in all census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and the census agglomerations (CAs) which are included in the census tract (CT) program. SSNFs are 'thinned-out' subsets of the 1991 SNFs containing major roads and railways (with street names but no address ranges). Generally, roads, streets and railroads forming census tract boundaries were used to create the SSNFs. Some bodies of water were included. Not all features forming CT boundaries were captured in the SSNFs.

Street network files

The Street network files (SNF) files are digital files representing the street network for most large urban centres in Canada. The files also contain other visible physical and cultural features (e.g. hydrography, railroads, pipelines, as well as municipal and park boundaries), and attribute information (e.g. street and hydrographic names, and address ranges for streets with assigned addresses). Streets and addresses are updated to reflect the information collected in the census. Municipalities are covered by the SNFs -- in census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and census agglomerations (CAs) with census tracts, in CAs without census tracts, and outside CMAs and CAs. Some CMAs and CAs are only partially covered by the SNFs. A comprehensive listing of CSDs entirely or partially covered by the SNFs is in the 1991 Census dictionary. Prior to 1991, the Street Network Files were called Area Master Files (AMFs). Coordinates: latitude/longitude.