About
According to Statistics Canada, at the 2006 Canadian census the city of Montreal proper had 1,620,693 inhabitants. However, 3,635,571 lived in the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) at the same 2006 census, up from 3,451,027 at the 2001 census (within 2006 CMA boundaries), which means a population growth of +1.05% per year between 2001 and 2006. In the 2006 census, children under 14 years of age (621,695) constituted 17.1%, while inhabitants over 65 years of age (495,685) numbered 13.6% of the total population. People of European ethnicities formed the largest cluster of ethnic groups in Montreal, mostly of French, Irish, Italian, and British origins. Some 26% of the population of Montreal and 16.5% of Greater Montreal are members of a visible minority (non-white) group. The most numerous minorities are Blacks (7.2%), Arabs (2.8%), Latin Americans (2.1%), South Asians (2%), and Chinese (2%).
According to a recently published report by the city of Montreal, the island is expected to number 1,991,200 by 2012, with 3.9 million in the Greater Montreal Area, an increase of 15.8% over 2001. However, in 2009, the Greater Montreal Area is estimated to number 3.86 million people, suggesting the city will hit and surpass 4 million by 2012.