Note 1: These files are restricted, and may be used for research and teaching
by University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and York University
faculty, students, and staff only.
Note 2: Files with extension '.exe' are self-extracting compressed and bundled files.
Use your WWW-browser to save the file to your workstation, then uncompress either by 'running'
the file, or using a utility such as WinZip or (on Unix) 'unzip'.
Note 3: Users running 64-bit Windows operating systems: Please note you will need to change the extension to .zip (from .exe) before uncompressing the file(s).
Digital boundary files portray the official boundaries used for 1996 census collection, and
therefore, often extend as straight lines into bodies of water.
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
25 census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and the 15 census agglomerations (CAs) which are included in the census
tract (CT) program. SSNFs are 'thinned-out' subsets of the 1996 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. These tend to be major features in urban centres and this
systematic rule facilitated the automation of the thinning process. Where a street is identified as a
CT boundary, effort was made to include its non-boundary extension for continuity. Some bodies of water
were included. Not all features forming CT boundaries were captured in the SSNFs.
SSNFs are available in ArcInfo and MapInfo formats only.
The 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 attributes 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 Census
Day, May 14, 1996. 344 municipalities are covered by the SNFs -- 328 in census metropolitan areas
(CMAs) and census agglomerations (CAs) with census tracts, 5 in CAs without census tracts, and
1 outside CMAs and CAs. This coverage represents 62% of Canada's population, but less than 1% of
the land area. 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 Appendix N of the 1996 Census dictionary.
Prior to 1991, the Street Network Files were called Area Master Files (AMFs).
Coordinates: latitude/longitude.
SNFs are available in ArcInfo and MapInfo formats only.
The new SNFEF files combine the 1996 Street network files (SNFs) with a road and
feature network taken from the digital National Topographic Data Base (NTDB) files produced by
Geomatics Canada, Natural Resources Canada. By combining these two sources of data, the SNFEFs
extend the digital coverage of twenty-six (26) urban centres partially covered by the SNF, to provide
full digital coverage of all census tracted CMAs/CAs. SNFEFs also provide coverage for three new tracted
CAs not covered at al by SNFs. The NTDB portions of the SNFEFs cover 298 census subdivisions,
representing a population of approximately 1.9 million people. The SNFEFs (NTDB extensions
joined to the 1996 SNFs) cover 642 CSDs and approximately 19.8 million people or 68% of the total
population of Canada. The extended coverage included in the SNFEFs does not include all the features
and attributes of the SNF (notably, address ranges are missing). For this reason, the SNFEFs, and in
particular the extended portion based on NTDB data, were created for mapping and display purposes only.
Coordinates: latitude/longitude.
SNFs are available in ArcInfo and MapInfo formats only.
Census of Canada, 1996: spatial data files
Spatial data files
Digital boundary file (DBF)
Digital cartographic file (DCF)
Skeletal street network files
Street network files
New street network and feature extension files
By Laine G.M. Ruus, Data Library Service, University of Toronto <dlsg@chass.utoronto.ca>