• Urban Municipalities, which includes Cities, Towns, Villages, and Summer Villages;
• Rural Municipalities, which includes Municipal Districts (also known as Counties), Improvement Districts, and Special Areas; and
• Specialized Municipalities.

Official Population Lists published prior to 1951 are questionable in their accuracy. Most population counts presented on these issues appear to be estimates that were not as a result of modern day Municipal Censuses. However, counts presented on the 1936, 1941, and 1946 editions are from the Federal Censuses (formerly referred to as Dominion Censuses) performed in those years. It is unknown whether the few counts that do not appear to be rounded in other editions of the pre-1951 OPLs are from early Municipal Censuses or just detailed estimates.

The official population of a municipality for any given year according to Municpal Affairs is the count from that municipality’s most recent Federal or Municipal (Civic) Census. Sections 57 and 604 of the Municipal Government Act (MGA) allows a municipality the right to perform its own Municipal Census. In turn, the results may be submitted for review by and acceptance of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, as per Determination of Population Regulation 63/2001, for the purpose of calculating per capita grants for the municipality.

If a municipality chooses to perform a Municipal Census in any given year, the results must be submitted before September 1 of that year in order for the population count to apply to the upcoming year’s per capita grants. In 2009, the annual OPL publication was released on December 11.

Listed in the menu to the left are copies of the annual Alberta OPL publication from 1913 to present in Adobe Reader (PDF) format. If you do not have Adobe Reader, please click here.

Note that the lists for 1913 to 1959 are copies available on the Alberta Municipal Affairs website. The OPLs for 1960 to 1995 have been scanned by AltaPop from paper into PDF format. The lists for 1996 and 1997 have been formatted from HTML using Microsoft Excel and converted into PDF format according to how they are presented on the Alberta Municipal Affairs website. The lists for 1998 to the present are the same copies posted in PDF format on the same website.