Ontario · Civic arena
Markham drinking water hardness is 126 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#3 of 343
68% City Score XP
7/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
Markham packs 7 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.
Full Markham water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Niagara Falls · vs PickeringHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for Markham 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.
Markham sits at City Score rank #3 with a standing of 68%, from 7 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. Rising 46 places versus 2022 (#49 → #3).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #2 of 25 (2025); indoor radon rank #269 of 327 at 60 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #57 of 57 (7.00 mill rate). 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, Markham carries a City Score standing of 68% (rank #3 of 343) with 7 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 15 points above the Ontario peer average across 123 ranked cities. Within Ontario, Markham ranks #3 of 123 on City Score.
The strongest signal in the current chart is property tax (standing 100%, rank #57 of 57, raw score 7). The weakest observed pillar is seismic hazard (standing 36%, rank #125 of 343).
Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 126 mg/L as CaCO₃ for Markham. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.
Arena loadout
Arena rank #3 of 343
7/8 pillars · main XP bar
Pillar avg · hardness #243
Rank #2
Rank #42
Rank #269
Rank #125
Rank #57
Markham 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
· Property tax
Verified direct property-tax rows cover 57 cities in Ontario, five in Nova Scotia, and Vancouver in BC. Elliot Lake leads the Ontario direct set at 23.21 mills. Markham posts 7.00 mills at the low end.
Published residential mill-rate context for Markham.
Outdoor heritage museum on Markham Road with historic buildings, seasonal festivals, and evening programs. AppleFest and Night
Municipal gallery on Main Street Unionville with exhibitions and community festivals. It keeps Unionville in the arts conversation even
Varley Art Gallery programming and One Love Festival listings put Main Street Unionville on the culture map, not only Markham Centre.
Where Markham sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Older hometown notes stay on the desk archive (noindex) — this section shows recent highlights only.
Markham's summer calendar has a new centre of gravity: Markham Centre, where the City is planting the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy for a multi-year run starting in August 2026. Launch parties, volunteer calls, and an I'm in for Indy contest aimed at Markham residents all point to the same civic core rather than a borrowed downtown elsewhere. York Region news packaging still wraps Markham inside upper-tier politics, and Highway 7 improvement notices remind drivers that the corridor is part of everyday commute talk.
Culture has its own map. The Varley Art Gallery of Markham sits on Main Street Unionville and hosts gatherings such as One Love Festival. Markham Museum on Markham Road keeps the outdoor heritage campus busy with Night at the Museum evenings and AppleFest. Flato Markham Theatre and Heintzman House round out the City arts roster, while Aaniin Community Centre puts fitness nights on the East Piazza and library programming under the same Aaniin name. Markham Public Library stays in the newsroom when leadership changes, which is how municipal institutions signal they matter.
Council stories on the Markham desk lean hard into housing: rental incentives, short-term rental votes, and development committee streams that keep planners on the live agenda. Election paperwork for 2026 is already open on markham.ca for candidates who want in. On the OpenStats City Score for 2025, Markham sits at rank 61 of 343. Rankings aside, the hometown read is a Markham Centre race weekend, Unionville gallery nights, and a museum campus that still hosts apple season.
Drawn from City of Markham, Arts, Culture & Library, Markham Museum, York Region News.
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 Markham 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
Construction · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by calendar-year municipal building permit value per resident (total permit dollars divided by the OpenStats population field). Permit totals use verified municipality-grain rows (Statistics Canada CSD or equivalent municipal open data). Population uses Statistics Canada Census 2021 (tables 98-10-0006-01, 98-10-0002-01). Cities without a verified municipal permit series are unplaced; City Score uses median standing on the construction pillar.
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places Markham in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
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
The Globe and Mail
2023 data partnership with Environics Analytics ranking 439 Canadian communities on ten livability categories.
Single edition · 2023
Only one published edition places Markham in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
The Ontario Honda Dealers Indy is booked into Markham Centre for a multi-year run beginning August 14 to 16, 2026.
Varley Art Gallery programming and One Love Festival listings put Main Street Unionville on the culture map, not only Markham Centre.
Markham Museum describes itself as an outdoor site with historic buildings on parkland at 9350 Markham Road.
York Region council coverage keeps Markham rental housing and short-term rental votes in the same local politics stream as neighbouring cities.
The civic core the City is using for Indy launch events and race weekend. For a few August days it becomes the place name on posters, volunteer shifts, and ticket contests.
Municipal gallery on Main Street Unionville with exhibitions and community festivals. It keeps Unionville in the arts conversation even when Markham Centre owns the motorsport headlines.
Outdoor heritage museum on Markham Road with historic buildings, seasonal festivals, and evening programs. AppleFest and Night at the Museum are the calendar markers locals already recognize.
East-end recreation and library hub where City listings put Fitness in the Square nights on the East Piazza. The Aaniin name also carries library branch programming.
When Markham moves in a ranking, posts new permit figures, or lands in a study, get a short note. A few sends a year, only when something changes.
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