Canmore, Alberta
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Alberta · Civic arena

Canmore

Canmore drinking water hardness is 119 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.

Civic arena · hometown HUD

Canmore

Census_agglomeration16k pop
38XP
#323

#323 of 343

38% City Score XP

Dropping
City Score XP

5/8 pillars on the board

38%#323

Decade trail

Canmore packs 5 of eight open-data pillars into its composite standing. Tap a rival below to see how the hometown stacks up head-to-head.

Canmore drinking water

Regional estimate from nearest municipal sample

Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas. This page uses a regional estimate — open the water atlas for method notes.

Hardness
119 mg/L
moderately hard
pH
7.7
Lead
0.7 μg/L

Full Canmore water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Lloydminster (Part) · vs HintonHardness guide

Watershed to tap · system map

How Canmore's water works

Source, treatment, and distribution for Canmore from municipal and provincial water records. Open the animated map for the full watershed-to-tap diagram — no nested topic navigation here.

Local numbers for Canmore

Permits, tax, internet, radon, hazards, drinking water, and sports rankings where a CHL hometown applies.

How Canmore scores

Dropping−40

Canmore sits at City Score rank #323 with a standing of 38%, from 5 of 8 open-data pillars (tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, growth, safety). Missing pillars score at median standing so thin coverage cannot inflate the rank. Dropping 40 places versus 2022 (#283 → #323).

Latest owned placements: indoor radon rank #219 of 327 at 89 Bq/m³ survey mean. Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.

On the latest OpenStats pass, Canmore carries a City Score standing of 38% (rank #323 of 343) with 5 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 11 points below the Alberta peer average across 51 ranked cities. Within Alberta, Canmore ranks #48 of 51 on City Score.

The strongest signal in the current chart is drinking-water hardness (standing 78%, rank #267 of 343, raw score 119). The weakest observed pillar is population growth (standing 3%, rank #334 of 343).

Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 119 mg/L as CaCO₃ for Canmore. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.

#323
Arena rank (of 343)
38%
City Score
5
Pillars observed
Dropping−40
vs 2022
#283 → #323

Arena loadout

Topic XP bars

Arena rank #323 of 343

City Score

5/8 pillars · main XP bar

38%#323
Drinking water

Pillar avg · hardness #267

39%
Building permits

No placement

—
Internet

Rank #294

15%
Radon

Rank #219

67%
Hazards

Rank #114

33%
Property tax

No placement

—

Canmore pillar standing

Eight equal-weight City Score pillars, 2025 panel year.

TaxPermitsNetRadonWaterHazardsGrowthCrime

Source: OpenStats composite / study editions

City Score standing trend

Standing percentage by panel year (higher is better).

Years: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

Source: OpenStats composite timeseries

Achievements

Dropping -40

Hometown notes

City profile

Older hometown notes stay on the desk archive (noindex) — this section shows recent highlights only.

Canmore in brief

Canmore is a Bow Valley mountain town on the Bow River. Town wildlife pages open with Living in the Bow Valley and the Give Wildlife Space campaign; Rocky Mountain Outlook covers the same valley beat as Best of the Bow. Riverside paths and parks sit on the Bow with mountain views, while Quarry Lake Park draws day-use crowds along Spray Lakes Road on the south side. East-valley neighbourhoods like Elk Run and Eagle Terrace look toward the Three Sisters and everyday field time.

Wildlife corridors are daily language here. The Lower Silvertip Wildlife Corridor runs through northeast Canmore with signed boundaries, and planning files for Three Sisters Mountain Village and Smith Creek keep corridor talk in the news. Wildfire danger sits on the homepage for Canmore and the Calgary Forest Area, with Bow Valley Community Fireguard work tied to sites like Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park and Dead Man's Flats. Bear country rules and attractant habits shape how people share trails with elk and bears.

Centennial Park hosts the Canmore Folk Festival at the Stan Rogers Stage, plus Highland Games and Canada Day. Elevation Place packs aquatics, climbing, fitness, a library, and galleries under one roof. Roam buses move people who leave the car home. Housing pressure shows up in municipal tools like the Livability Tax Program and Vital Homes contributions collected with property taxes. Grassi Lakes trails appear in RMO hazard coverage when rockfall closes routes. On OpenStats City Score for 2025, Canmore sits at rank 333 of 343. Locals still introduce the place as Bow Valley first.

Drawn from Town of Canmore - Wildlife, Town of Canmore - Parks, playgrounds, sport fields, Rocky Mountain Outlook, Town of Canmore - Bow Valley Community Fireguard.

City Score over time

City Score from 2016–2025 across eight open-data pillars. Individual study placements are listed in the panels below.

0%25%50%75%100%2016201720182019202020212022202320242025
OpenStats City Score

Rankings for Canmore

Each study below is its own ranking. Where a study has more than one edition for this city, the chart shows standing across those years only.

Safety · OpenStats

Crime severity not placed

Statistics Canada does not publish a police-service Crime Severity Index that OpenStats can match to Canmore without copying a province, CMA, or another city. The safety pillar scores at median standing (50%) on City Score, the same rule used for other missing pillars.

Connectivity · OpenStats

OpenStats Broadband Download Speeds

OpenStats

Cities ranked by household-weighted maximum advertised download (Mbps) from ISED National Broadband Data hex ISP rows, with hex-to-city assignment by population-weighted gravity. The headline 2025 score is the dwelling-weighted mean of per-hex technology ceilings (fibre and cable at 1 Gbps, DSL lower). Household-weighted 50/10 availability (%) is stored on atlas rows as avail_5010_pct. Earlier panel years backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber and availability paths.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#294
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 101.2

Composite · OpenStats

OpenStats City Score

OpenStats

Dimensional average of OpenStats open-data pillars for each panel year 2016-2025: tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, population growth, and crime severity. Each series is scored 0-1 within its edition; series in the same pillar are averaged, then all eight pillars are averaged with equal weight. Missing pillars score at median standing (0.5). Crime severity uses StatCan police-service CSI only (Tables 35-10-0026-01 and 35-10-0063-01); cities without a police-service match take median standing on the safety pillar. Growth uses StatCan CSD estimates; construction uses verified municipal building-permit value per resident (population field on each city record, 2021 Census vintage); mill rates and broadband use live rows plus documented year-varying estimates where needed. Radon, water, and PGA may be survey/model vintages carried forward and are flagged when static for more than two years. External commercial livability lists are never inputs.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#323
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.384

Water · OpenStats

OpenStats Drinking Water Hardness

OpenStats

Communities ranked by municipal drinking-water hardness (mg/L as CaCO₃). Hardness changes slowly; the atlas vintage is carried across panel years and flagged when static for more than two years.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#267
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 119

Health · OpenStats

OpenStats Highest Indoor Radon

OpenStats

Communities ranked by Health Canada survey mean indoor radon (Bq/m³). Rank 1 is the highest mean. Decade panel years without a new survey carry the CMA survey vintage forward; they are not annual retests.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#219
Latest · 2025 · of 327
Score 88.7

Growth · OpenStats

OpenStats Population Growth

OpenStats

Cities ranked by year-over-year population growth from Statistics Canada annual CSD estimates (Table 17-10-0155-01). Rank 1 is fastest growth. A few places without a clean CSD match use a provincial-path estimate anchored to seed population.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#334
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score -0.013258222373961534

Hazards · OpenStats

OpenStats Seismic Hazard (PGA)

OpenStats

Communities ranked by NRCan peak ground acceleration (higher = stronger shaking hazard). Rank 1 is highest PGA. The seismic model is multi-year; values are carried across the City Score panel and flagged as static until NRCan publishes a new generation.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#114
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.067

Livability

Globe and Mail Most Livable Cities

The Globe and Mail

2023 data partnership with Environics Analytics ranking 439 Canadian communities on ten livability categories.

Single edition · 2023

#13
Published · 2023 · of 439

Only one published edition places Canmore in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.

Original source · Full edition

Livability

Maclean's Best Communities

Maclean's

Successor-style municipal livability ranking published by Maclean's for 2019 and 2021 (no 2020 edition).

Single edition · 2019

#28
Published · 2019 · of 415

Only one published edition places Canmore in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.

Original source · Full edition

Worth knowing in Canmore

Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.

Places to see

Quarry Lake Park

South-side Bow Valley day-use lake along Spray Lakes Road, a favourite swim and picnic stop when the weather cooperates. It is one of the town's clearest outdoor landmarks.

Centennial Park

Host grounds for Canmore Folk Festival, Highland Games, and Canada Day, with the Stan Rogers Stage as the music anchor. Summer weekends often start here.

Elevation Place

Indoor aquatics, climbing, fitness, library, and galleries under one roof. It is the year-round counterweight to trail and river days.

Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park

World-class ski and bike venue on the edge of town, also named in Bow Valley Community Fireguard project work. Locals treat it as both recreation home and wildfire-preparedness geography.

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