Norfolk, Ontario
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Ontario · Civic arena

Norfolk

Norfolk drinking water hardness is 115 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.

Civic arena · hometown HUD

Norfolk

Census_agglomeration67k pop
46XP
#230

#230 of 343

46% City Score XP

Dropping
City Score XP

6/8 pillars on the board

46%#230

Decade trail

Norfolk 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.

Norfolk 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
115 mg/L
moderately hard
pH
7.3
Lead
0.3 μg/L

Full Norfolk water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Kenora · vs KingsvilleHardness guide

Watershed to tap · system map

How Norfolk's water works

Source, treatment, and distribution for Norfolk 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 Norfolk

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

How Norfolk scores

Dropping−79

Norfolk sits at City Score rank #230 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. Dropping 79 places versus 2022 (#151 → #230).

Latest owned placements: indoor radon rank #119 of 327 at 111 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #16 of 57 (15.74 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, Norfolk carries a City Score standing of 46% (rank #230 of 343) with 6 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 6 points below the Ontario peer average across 123 ranked cities. Within Ontario, Norfolk ranks #92 of 123 on City Score.

The strongest signal in the current chart is drinking-water hardness (standing 80%, rank #275 of 343, raw score 115). The weakest observed pillar is property tax (standing 28%, rank #16 of 57).

Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 115 mg/L as CaCO₃ for Norfolk. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.

#230
Arena rank (of 343)
46%
City Score
6
Pillars observed
Dropping−79
vs 2022
#151 → #230

Arena loadout

Topic XP bars

Arena rank #230 of 343

City Score

6/8 pillars · main XP bar

46%#230
Drinking water

Pillar avg · hardness #275

70%
Building permits

No placement

—
Internet

Rank #143

59%
Radon

Rank #119

36%
Hazards

Rank #165

48%
Property tax

Rank #16

28%

Norfolk 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 -79

Hometown notes

City profile

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

Norfolk in brief

Norfolk County stretches along Ontario's South Coast, where Lake Erie beaches at Port Dover, Turkey Point, and Long Point still set the summer calendar. Tourism materials call the place Ontario's Garden for a reason: fruit and vegetable farming, farm markets, and kitchen tables that lean on local produce. Inland, Simcoe carries the administrative weight and the fairgrounds, while Delhi and Waterford keep the agricultural story close at hand. Port Rowan rounds out the shore-town circuit when the map points farther west.

Heritage sits in three municipal museums that locals actually use. The Delhi Tobacco Museum & Heritage Centre holds the tobacco-belt chapter without pretending the crop still runs the whole economy. Port Dover Harbour Museum looks out on the working harbour and fisheries past. Waterford Heritage & Agricultural Museum stays with barns, tools, and field seasons. October brings the Norfolk County Fair and Horse Show in Simcoe, and Waterford Pumpkinfest stacks the same month with another reason to drive the county roads. Spring and summer fill in with strawberry and harvest festivals in Delhi and friendship weekends in Simcoe.

Port Dover also hosts PD13, the Friday the 13th motorcycle gathering that fills the harbour town whenever the calendar hits. Between festival weekends, Ride Norfolk moves people across a big rural municipality, and the Delhi Kinsmen Pool is the swim schedule residents check in summer. Long Point's Biosphere Reserve and Carolinian forest canopy give birders and hikers a different kind of weekend than the beach strip. Put it together and Norfolk reads as farm country with a Lake Erie front porch, still proud of its gardens and still packing the fairgrounds when October arrives.

Drawn from Norfolk Business / Tourism, Norfolk County Heritage and Culture, Norfolk County, Simcoe Reformer.

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 Norfolk

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 Norfolk 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

#143
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 650.9

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

#230
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.465

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

#275
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 115

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

#119
Latest · 2025 · of 327
Score 111.4

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

#239
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.005275799353020395

Property tax · OpenStats

OpenStats Residential Mill Rates

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

#16
Latest · 2025 · of 57
Score 15.74

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

#165
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.047

Worth knowing in Norfolk

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

Places to see

Port Dover

Harbour town on Lake Erie with beach life, marina weather talk, and the PD13 motorcycle weekends. The Port Dover Harbour Museum keeps the fisheries story on the waterfront.

Delhi Tobacco Museum & Heritage Centre

Municipal museum that interprets the tobacco-belt era without freezing the county in that past. A clear stop when you want the inland agricultural chapter.

Long Point

Biosphere Reserve dunes and marshes known for migrating birds and quiet shoreline miles. A different Norfolk than the busy Port Dover strip.

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