Ontario · Civic arena
North Bay drinking water hardness is 90 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#193 of 343
49% City Score XP
6/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
North Bay 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 North Bay water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Prince Edward County · vs EspanolaHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for North Bay 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.
Sports
64 GP · 51 pts · Compare CHL cities
North Bay sits at City Score rank #193 with a standing of 49%, 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 48 places versus 2022 (#145 → #193).
Latest owned placements: indoor radon rank #297 of 327 at 48 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #18 of 57 (15.42 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.
In the 2025 City Score edition, North Bay carries a City Score standing of 49% (rank #193 of 343) with 6 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 4 points below the Ontario peer average across 123 ranked cities. Within Ontario, North Bay ranks #83 of 123 on City Score.
The strongest signal in the current chart is drinking-water hardness (standing 91%, rank #313 of 343, raw score 90). The weakest observed pillar is broadband download (ISED seed tier) (standing 24%, rank #263 of 343).
Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 90 mg/L as CaCO₃ for North Bay. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.
Arena loadout
Arena rank #193 of 343
6/8 pillars · main XP bar
Pillar avg · hardness #313
No placement
Rank #263
Rank #297
Rank #93
Rank #18
North Bay 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
· Indoor radon
Algoma Public Health invited Elliot Lake households to free radon sessions October 8. No 2025 radon survey row; mill rate rank #1 at 20.97 mills; composite rank #323; construction pillar unplaced.
Published residential mill-rate context for North Bay.
Lake Nipissing shoreline with walkway, marina, and the Kiwanis Bandshell. Locals treat it as the civic living room when the weather
Municipal beach used for summer aqua fitness and easy lake days. One of the simpler ways to get onto Nipissing without a boat launch plan.
Tourism North Bay brands the city as the Gateway to the North.
Where North Bay sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Older hometown notes stay on the desk archive (noindex) — this section shows recent highlights only.
North Bay sits on a land bridge between Lake Nipissing and Trout Lake, and tourism still introduces it as the Gateway to the North. Municipal history treats the Lake Nipissing waterfront as the heartbeat of town: walkway, gardens, museum, and public marina facing the bigger lake, while Trout Lake supplies drinking water and gives Trout Lake Road its name. When reconstruction crews take another bite of Trout Lake Road at Laurentian Avenue, or when Lakeshore Drive gets new curb work, everyone knows which corridor is under the cones.
Railways built the hub. Canadian Pacific hugged Lake Nipissing to dodge the North Bay escarpment, and later CN and Ontario Northland traffic made the city a supply centre for lumber and mining country farther out. The city incorporated in 1925 and later amalgamated with surrounding townships, keeping a large geographic footprint for a northern Ontario centre. Today Nipissing University and Canadore College share the Highway 17 west campus edge, with Duchesnay Falls cascading through the Education Centre Trails just behind them. Hikers treat those falls as a four-season errand, not a distant day trip.
Summer still gathers at the Kiwanis Bandshell for the Summer Concert Series, and The Cove Beach hosts easy water fitness when the lake is warm. The Steve Omischl Sports Field Complex is adding a Community Recreation Centre aimed at an August 2026 opening, another sign that indoor sport is catching up to the shoreline habit. BayToday keeps the local desk busy with YYB flights, downtown errands, and neighbourhood notices. The through-line is simple: a transportation city that never forgot it lives between two lakes.
Drawn from City of North Bay - Our History, City of North Bay, Tourism North Bay, Tourism North Bay - Duchesnay Falls, BayToday.
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 North Bay 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
Sports · OpenStats
OpenStats
Canadian Hockey League (OHL, WHL, QMJHL) member cities ranked by regular-season points percentage. One CHL team maps to each OpenStats hometown slug; standings snapshot is curated from public league tables.
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places North Bay 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
Sports · OpenStats
OpenStats
Hometowns with a mapped junior hockey franchise ranked by local sports depth: league tier (CHL member leagues = 1.0, MHL = 0.65) multiplied by regular-season points percentage. Surfaces cities with both a franchise and a strong standings year; not a City Score pillar input.
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places North Bay in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
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.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
Tourism North Bay brands the city as the Gateway to the North.
Trout Lake is the source of the city's drinking water and the headwater of the Mattawa River.
Duchesnay Falls sits behind Nipissing University and Canadore College on the Laurentian Escarpment.
The Summer Concert Series still books free live music at the Kiwanis Bandshell on the waterfront.
Lake Nipissing shoreline with walkway, marina, and the Kiwanis Bandshell. Locals treat it as the civic living room when the weather cooperates.
Waterfall and hardwood trails minutes from downtown, accessible from the university and college trailheads. Popular in spring runoff and fall colour season alike.
Municipal beach used for summer aqua fitness and easy lake days. One of the simpler ways to get onto Nipissing without a boat launch plan.
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