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Duncan, British Columbia
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British Columbia · Civic arena

Duncan

Duncan drinking water hardness is 181 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.

Civic arena · hometown HUD

Duncan

Census_agglomeration48k pop
46XP
#229

#229 of 343

46% City Score XP

Groundwater
City Score XP

6/8 pillars on the board

46%#229

Decade trail

Duncan packs 6 of eight open-data pillars into its composite standing. Tap a rival below to see how the hometown stacks up head-to-head.

Rivalries on deck

vs Kelownavs Port Moodyvs Fort St. JohnCustom matchup →

Duncan 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
181 mg/L
very hard
pH
6.9
Lead
0.5 μg/L

Full Duncan water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Kelowna · vs Port MoodyHardness guide

Watershed to tap · system map

How Duncan's water works

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

Open full system map →Full Duncan water atlas page
Water atlas · animated system map
City Score rankings →Compare cities →vs Kelowna →vs Port Moody →

Local numbers for Duncan

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

PermitsBrowseBuilding permitsTaxBrowseProperty taxInternetInternet in DuncanRadonRadon in DuncanHazardsHazards in DuncanWaterWater quality in DuncanSportsBrowseSports

How Duncan scores

Duncan sits at City Score rank #229 with a standing of 46%, from 6 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. The chart below shows how that standing moves year to year.

Latest owned placements: indoor radon rank #300 of 327 at 44 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.

Against the national corpus, Duncan carries a City Score standing of 46% (rank #229 of 343) with 6 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 1 points below the British Columbia peer average across 58 ranked cities. Within British Columbia, Duncan ranks #32 of 58 on City Score.

The strongest signal in the current chart is indoor radon (standing 92%, rank #300 of 327, raw score 44.3). The weakest observed pillar is police-reported crime severity (standing 1%, rank #1 of 102, 336.1 CSI). Crime severity uses the Statistics Canada police-service CSI mapped to Duncan, British Columbia, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, municipal (table 35100063), not a regional proxy.

Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 181 mg/L as CaCO₃ for Duncan. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.

#229
Arena rank (of 343)
46%
City Score
6
Pillars observed

Arena loadout

Topic XP bars

Arena rank #229 of 343

City Score

6/8 pillars · main XP bar

46%#229
Drinking water

Pillar avg · hardness #145

35%
Building permits

No placement

—
Internet

Rank #165

52%
Radon

Rank #300

92%
Hazards

Rank #7

2%
Property tax

No placement

—

Duncan 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

Groundwater supply

In the news

Data desk

Hometown notes

City profile

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

Duncan in brief

Duncan is small on the map and large in the Cowichan Region's daily errands. City copy calls it the economic hub for healthcare, retail, professional services, and cultural tourism, with fishing, farming, forestry, and tourism still named as the valley's working mix. People who live just outside the municipal line know the standing joke baked into the website: Do I Live in the City of Duncan? North Cowichan, Ladysmith, and Lake Cowichan sit in the same Cowichan Valley Regional District orbit, so the city punches above its acreage.

Downtown is where the identity sticks. Heritage and vintage storefronts face a busy City Square, and the Totems Tour sends visitors along yellow footprints past more than forty poles, with interpretive signs and a stop by the Cowichan Valley Museum. Locals treat City of Totems as ordinary speech, not brochure fluff. Canada Avenue carries both shopping traffic and construction notices, while parks like Charles Hoey V.C. Memorial Park, McAdam Park, Rotary Park, and Friendship Square give the core room to breathe between Station Street and the residential edges.

History pages place Duncan on the traditional lands of the Cowichan First Nation, and Tourism Cowichan frames the wider valley as Quw’utsun and neighbouring Nations' territory. The Cowichan Valley Citizen covers the same geography as one newsroom beat, from craft-beer festivals to mill headlines out toward Cowichan Bay. OpenStats ranks Duncan high on City Score among Canadian communities in the 2026 set, but the street-level tell is simpler: if someone mentions yellow footprints, City Square, and Canada Avenue, they are talking about Duncan.

Drawn from City of Duncan, City of Duncan, City of Duncan, Cowichan Valley Citizen.

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 Duncan

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.

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

#165
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 539.3
0501002016201720182019202020212022202320242025

Original source · Full edition

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

#229
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.465
0501002016201720182019202020212022202320242025

Original source · Full edition

Safety · OpenStats

OpenStats Crime Severity Index

OpenStats

Communities ranked by Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index at police-service grain (Tables 35-10-0026-01 and 35-10-0063-01 for British Columbia). Rank 1 is highest CSI (worse). Cities without a police-service match are not listed; the safety pillar scores at median standing on City Score. Hometown pages name the police service and reference year.

CSI from Duncan, British Columbia, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, municipal (2025, Table 35-10-0063-01).

4 editions · 2022–2025

#1
Latest · 2025 · of 102
Score 336.06
0501002022202320242025

Original source · Full edition

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

#145
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 181
0501002016201720182019202020212022202320242025

Original source · Full edition

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

#300
Latest · 2025 · of 327
Score 44.3
0501002016201720182019202020212022202320242025

Original source · Full edition

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

#37
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.027544267572884994
0501002016201720182019202020212022202320242025

Original source · Full edition

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

#7
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.394
0501002016201720182019202020212022202320242025

Original source · Full edition

Worth knowing in Duncan

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

  • Municipal pages brand Duncan the City of Totems, with a yellow-footprint walking tour past more than forty poles.

    City of Duncan

  • The city describes itself as the Cowichan Region hub for healthcare, retail, and cultural tourism tied to fishing, farming, forestry, and visitor traffic.

    City of Duncan

  • Duncan sits inside the Cowichan Valley Regional District alongside North Cowichan, Ladysmith, and Lake Cowichan.

    City of Duncan

  • OpenStats City Score places Duncan at rank 10 among 125 communities in the 2026 composite set.

    OpenStats datapack

Places to see

Totems Tour

Self-guided walk marked by yellow footprints, with carver stories on signage and a route past the Cowichan Valley Museum.

City Square

Downtown gathering block the city ties to revitalization and the daily cultural traffic of the core.

McAdam Park

Sports-ready park paired with Rotary Park in the city's adopted master plan.

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Related guides

Water hardnessIndoor radonNatural hazardsBroadbandConstruction PulseNewsStudies

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