page_title: Iqaluit
section_title: Demographics
hierarchical_section_title: Iqaluit / Demographics
caption_attribution_description: Iqaluit
context_page_description: Iqaluit is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, its largest community, and its only city. It was known as Frobisher Bay from 1942 to 1987, after the large bay on the coast of which the city is situated. In 1987, its traditional Inuktitut name was restored.
  In 1999, Iqaluit was designated the capital of Nunavut after the division of the Northwest Territories into two separate territories. Before this event, Iqaluit was a small city and not well known outside the Canadian Arctic or Canada, with population and economic growth highly limited. This is due to the city's isolation and heavy dependence on expensively imported supplies, as the city, like the rest of Nunavut, has no road or rail, and only has ship connections for part of the year to the rest of Canada. The city has a polar climate, influenced by the cold deep waters of the Labrador Current just off Baffin Island; this makes the city of Iqaluit cold, although it is well south of the Arctic Circle.
  As of the 2016 census, the population was 7,740, an increase of 15.5 percent from the 2011 census. Iqaluit has the lowest population of any capital city in Canada. Inhabitants of Iqaluit are called Iqalummiut.
context_section_description: The 2016 census reported that there were 7,740, people living in Iqaluit, a 15.5% increase from 2011 census. The land area of the city is 52.50 km² (20.27 sq mi), therefore a population density of 147.4/km² (382/sq mi). Iqaluit has 3,419 private dwellings, 2,749 of which are occupied by usual residents. The median value of these dwellings is $376,639, quite a bit higher than the national median at $280,552. The average household has about 2.8 people living in it, and the average family has 1.4 children living at home with them. The median (after-tax) household income in Iqaluit is quite high, $98,921, almost double the national rate at $54,089. The median income for an individual in the city, is also high, $60,688. 5.9% of people (over 15 years old) are either divorced or separated, which is quite a bit lower than the national rate at 8.6%. Also, 53.3% of the population is either married or living with a common law partner.
  Iqaluit has quite a young population, the median age of the population is more than 10 years younger than the national rate, 30.1 years old compared to 40.6 years old.
  Iqaluit has the most Inuit people in both numbers (3,900) and percentages (59.1%), of all Canadian cities with populations greater than 5,000. The racial make up is:
  59.4% Indigenous;  1.4% First Nations, 1.2% Metis, 56.3% Inuit
  34.3% White
  3.0% Black
  2.2% Southeast Asian; 2.0% Filipino 
  0.9% East Asian; 0.7% Chinese, 0.2% Korean
  0.9% South Asian
  0.4% Arab
  0.3% Latin American
  0.2% Multiracial;  16.2% with Inuit and Non-Aboriginal mixed 
  There is no "majority mother tongue" in Iqaluit, as 45.4% reported their mother tongue as being English, and 45.4% also reported their mother tongue as Inuktitut. 97.2% of Iqalummiuts can speak English, however, whereas only 53.1% can speak Inuktitut. French was the mother tongue of 4.8% of the population, which is the same figure of the population who can speak the language. As of 2012, "Pirurvik, Iqaluit’s Inuktitut language training centre, has a new goal: to train instructors from Nunavut communities to teach Inuktitut in different ways and in their own dialects when they return home."
  74.9% of the population practise some form of Christianity (Anglican is the most popular at 42.6%), and 22.9% of the population identify as having no religious affiliation. There are other religions practised in the city, just not in large numbers.
  For those over the age of 25:
  75.7% are high school educated (15.9% as their highest level of education)
  59.8% are post-secondary school educated
  24.3% have no certificate, diploma or degree
caption: A stop sign in Iqaluit. The sign features the two most-spoken languages in the city, English and Inuktitut.
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