What is the population of Calgary?
The figures compare with the Statistics Canada population statistics. In 1980, the city had about 560 thousand people and in 2008, about 1,043 thousand, the third largest in Canada. From these two data points, we get an average of around 2.2% increase per year, with some variation depending on the method of calculation. Another source of variations is changes in the rate of growth in the recent Calgary booming economy. For instance in the years immediately following the crash after the 1970s oil boom, the population actually declined. The city lost a net 3000 people between 1982 and 1984, as newly unemployed people “got the hell outta here”. At other times we saw well over 20,000 flock to the city in a single year. And that is in addition to the seven to nine thousand net population increase owing to births. Not bad for our little spot on the map. A handy way of making statistical estimations is the rule of 72, where you divide 72 by the percentage rate to get the number of years it wo
