Canadian What-If Map Kit (pagebreak warning)

[Hatman 🍁]

Good stuff!

I am interested in what some of your resources are for finding old municipal boundaries are and what not. Some old riding boundaries can be hard to identify if they use powerlines, lots, concessions, defunct railways, etc.

[Smid]

Not sure if it's the same in Canada, but I suspect it is. Over here, old maps like that are frequently kept in old collections held by the State Library or Parliamentary Library. Even if it's not at the Parliamentary Library, they often have reciprocal rights and can order items from the State Library and probably scan and email these maps so you have them electronically. If anyone has a close contact who works in Parliament, especially if that contact is on good terms with one of the librarians, they could probably obtain some of those maps relatively easily.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

I used the 68-11 maps from the atlas, and the 52 district maps, also from the atlas. This is as far back as I can find though (York U Library has some maps of provincial ridings for assorted years) and I can not find any more past federal ridings.

[Hash]

The Parliament website has the official descriptions for all ridings going back to Confederation. In places like QC and southern ON where they follow county and township lines, it's not that hard to reconstruct. I did a fairly accurate map of the 1917-1924 and 1924-1933 redistributions for southern ON.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Parliament website has the official descriptions for all ridings going back to Confederation. In places like QC and southern ON where they follow county and township lines, it's not that hard to reconstruct. I did a fairly accurate map of the 1917-1924 and 1924-1933 redistributions for southern ON.

Yeah, but there are other provinces. BTW, when will you be posting those maps?

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

May I use your maps, hash? If you have extra copies?

http://www.parl.gc.ca/About/Parliament/FederalRidingsHistory/hfer.asp?Language=E&Search=Det&Include=Y&rid=328

Also, the history of ridings page has all ridings.

[Linus Van Pelt]

This is great work, Teddy.

Fascinating to see old ridings in MTL and Toronto.

As a kind of side note, it's interesting to see the evolution of the "York Direction" names from their geographically sane origins. In the pre-WWII map, the last before Teddy's maps here start, as you can see here, York County (i.e. present day Toronto+York Region) outside Toronto was just divided into North, South, East and West based on direction, with South being a somewhat urban riding including the industrial town of Weston. Then in the post-1947 map shown here, York Centre is created along with a couple of other suburban ridings, but still the geographic directions basically make sense (though York East is no longer at the east end of the county since the rural part got the new Scarborough name). But after various gradual shifts, you get to the current situation where even though Toronto has been separated from York Region, the only remaining names are a cluster in northwest Toronto, which just makes no sense.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The old cities of York, East York, and North York, were once rural parts of York County.

[Hatman 🍁]

Yeah, they're based on the former municipality names.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Yeah, they're based on the former municipality names.

But they're not - look at the map I linked to, or the historical descriptions at Teddy's link. York West started out in Etobicoke, York East included all of Scarborough, and York North went up to Lake Simcoe. It's true that where they've ended up, York Centre and West are in the centre and west of North York, and York South-Weston overlaps with the old city of York (though not really its south particularly). It's possible I suppose that some redistricting commission in the 80's or 90's thought this was the reason for the names and that's why they've survived, but that's not the real origin.

(Sort of a Gareth Evans Madagascar type of case, actually, for those who are interested in that sort of thing).

[Hatman 🍁]

Well, the names have stuck because of the municipal names.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

But there never was a "York East", only an "East York", nor a "York North", only a "North York", and never was anything close to a "York West", and "York South" is known as "York".

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

This should help explain the York business.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

[Hatman 🍁]

I dont think it was called Whitchurch-Stouffville back then.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

BAH
my point is made.