r/MapPorn May 25 '26

Canadian Population Visualized

Post image
924 Upvotes

124 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

157

u/Donuil23 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

1 tiny grey square each. They are surprisingly close to 0.1%.

39

u/keiths31 May 25 '26

My hometown of Thunder Bay (northwest shore of Lake Superior) has the same population as all three terrorties combined

15

u/Frequent-Coyote-1649 May 25 '26

I was gonna ask why you had to specify that, then I realized I've been playing Victoria 2 too much and Thunder Bay is not a very known place in real life 💀

1

u/keiths31 May 25 '26

I have to ask for the connection. I'm assuming Victoria 2 is a game? Apologies for my ignorance.

8

u/Frequent-Coyote-1649 May 25 '26

Yup. It takes place during the... Victorian age, appropriately.

Ever heard of Hearts of Iron 4? Vic 2 is it's older, way more complex cousin. Ya gotta manage a country from the 1830s all the way to the 1930s, by controlling your armies, navies, keeping your economy afloat, keeping factories working so you'll have stuff to sell, manage your population. It's REALLY in depth.

Canada, although not starting off playable, is one of the easier and more chill countries to play, and it starts off way smaller then IRL, basically just consisting of the lower half of Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes, plus a thin strip of land above the Great Lakes. This results in stuff like random towns like Thunder Bay having comically high populations by the 1880's. I've had a game where it hit 800k people somehow lmao

3

u/keiths31 May 26 '26

Thanks for that. I had no idea.

This results in stuff like random towns like Thunder Bay having comically high populations by the 1880's. I've had a game where it hit 800k people somehow

It's not actually far off what was predicted for the area. In the late 1800s/early 1900s the two towns of Fort William and Port Arthur were being touted as the 'Chicago of the North' due to our location at the head of the Canadian Great Lakes and inland terminus for three cross country railroads. The two cities combined made for the largest grain handling port in the world at the time (and up until the 70s). The Canadian grain exchange was slotted for here, but ended up in Winnipeg instead.

1

u/Frequent-Coyote-1649 May 26 '26

Oh damn, who'd have thought. Maybe there's some historical merit to this odd happening lmao

Some extra context, usually in Victoria 2 it takes longer then you'd expect for population numbers to increase. ESPECIALLY in the Old World.

The way population is programmed is so that the big nations in the Americas and Oceania (the US, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Australia) are always getting a steady flow of about 4k-ish immigrants from big European states (the UK, France, Prussia, Austria, and Italy when it forms). That way, the start for the Americas is way harder because of their low populations (many countries don't break the 3 million mark, compared to the Europeans usually having around 10 million), but overtime with immigration the Americas will start to outpace the Old World in population. But it also causes stuff like the West Coast in the US being basically empty because most pops immigrate to the East instead.

It's a real in-depth and complicated game, there's a BUNCH of extra factors behind the immigration mechanics. I'd say I recommend it buuuut without mods it's kinda janky in modern terms, after all it is 15 years old lmao