Nova Scotia · Civic arena
Kentville drinking water hardness is 176 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#152 of 343
51% City Score XP
6/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
Kentville 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
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.
Full Kentville water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Amherst · vs BridgewaterHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for Kentville from municipal and provincial water records. Open the animated map for the full watershed-to-tap diagram — no nested topic navigation here.
Permits, tax, internet, radon, hazards, drinking water, and sports rankings where a CHL hometown applies.
Kentville sits at City Score rank #152 with a standing of 51%, 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 #15 of 327 at 195 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #27 of 57 (14.26 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.
Among Canadian cities on the hub, Kentville carries a City Score standing of 51% (rank #152 of 343) with 6 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 2 points above the Nova Scotia peer average across 9 ranked cities. Within Nova Scotia, Kentville ranks #4 of 9 on City Score.
The strongest signal in the current chart is population growth (standing 79%, rank #73 of 343, +2.2% annual growth). The weakest observed pillar is indoor radon (standing 5%, rank #15 of 327).
Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 176 mg/L as CaCO₃ for Kentville. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.
Arena loadout
Arena rank #152 of 343
6/8 pillars · main XP bar
Pillar avg · hardness #157
No placement
Rank #149
Rank #15
Rank #172
Rank #27
Kentville pillar standing
Eight equal-weight City Score pillars, 2025 panel year.
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
Published residential mill-rate context for Kentville.
Protected wetland trail loop popular for birdwatching, with access from the Harvest Moon Trail and Bridge Street. Info panels and viewing
Forest trail featured on Roots and Routes for Eastern Hemlocks and local conservation stories. Blue town signage helps newcomers find trail
Miner's Marsh holds about 1.7 km of trail with birdwatching stands and interpretive panels.
Where Kentville sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Older hometown notes stay on the desk archive (noindex) — this section shows recent highlights only.
Kentville puts itself at the heart of the Annapolis Valley, and the parks system is how that claim feels true on foot. Miner's Marsh, the Ducks Unlimited wetland locals just call Miners Marsh, loops 1.7 kilometres of trail with viewing stands and bird panels. You can reach it from the Harvest Moon Trail at Leverett Avenue or from parking behind the Law Courts on Bridge Street. Oakdene Park covers the other mood: soccer fields, a natural playground, a summer stage, and a duck pond that freezes into a rink when winter finally sticks.
Trail culture here is specific. Shared-use paths carry walkers and bikes under blue municipal signage, and Roots and Routes, the Recreation podcast, digs into places like Ravine Trail with its Eastern Hemlocks and Wabanaki-Acadian forest story. Downtown stays close: Centre Square at 389 Main Street, the Downtown Kentville Business District, and Experience Downtown Kentville links on the town site. Kentville Forward sits in the project spotlight language when council is pushing the next chapter. Errands and trailheads share the same small-town map.
On OpenStats City Score for 2025, Kentville sits at rank 166 of 343. The hometown pitch is Valley wetlands and ravines before any scoreboard. Birders head for the marsh, kids for Oakdene, and Main Street for the ordinary errands that make a county town feel finished. When someone says they are going for a walk in Kentville, they usually mean one of those named trail loops, not a generic green space on a tourist map.
Drawn from Town of Kentville - Parks and Trails, Town of Kentville - Miner's Marsh, Town of Kentville - Oakdene Park, Town of Kentville.
City Score from 2016–2025 across eight open-data pillars. Individual study placements are listed in the panels below.
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
Statistics Canada does not publish a police-service Crime Severity Index that OpenStats can match to Kentville 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
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
Composite · OpenStats
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
Water · OpenStats
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
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by reported lead (µg/L) on the OpenStats water atlas. Carried across panel years until annual municipal report panels are ingested.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Health · OpenStats
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
Growth · OpenStats
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
Property tax · OpenStats
OpenStats
Municipalities ranked by residential mill rate (education levies are shown on property-tax pages but not added here). Rank 1 is the highest rate. Atlas seed and published municipal rows anchor the panel; off-panel tax years (e.g. 2026) carry across 2016–2025; remaining gaps follow provincial paths.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Hazards · OpenStats
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
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
2 editions · 2014–2015
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
The Harvest Moon Trail connects into Miner's Marsh near Leverett Avenue.
Oakdene Park's duck pond becomes a skating rink in winter and a concert stage in summer.
Roots and Routes is the Town Recreation podcast that profiles places like Ravine Trail.
Centre Square sits at 389 Main Street as a downtown programming address.
Protected wetland trail loop popular for birdwatching, with access from the Harvest Moon Trail and Bridge Street. Info panels and viewing stands make it a first stop for visitors who want Valley nature without leaving town.
Community hub with soccer fields, a natural playground, community garden, and seasonal rink. Summer concerts on the park stage keep evenings local.
Forest trail featured on Roots and Routes for Eastern Hemlocks and local conservation stories. Blue town signage helps newcomers find trail heads across Kentville.
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