The overwhelming majority of the district (about 92%) is unincorporated and part of Unorganized North Sudbury District. With the exception of Chapleau, all of the district's incorporated municipalities are found in the area immediately surrounding the city of Greater Sudbury to the west, east and south. North of the Greater Sudbury area, the district is sparsely populated; between Sudbury and Chapleau, only unincorporated settlements, ghost towns and small First Nations reserves are found.
Politically, however, the district and the city are considered two distinct census divisions and two distinct jurisdictions for provincial government services. The district's social services board—which has offices in the district seat of Espanola, as well as satellite offices in several other communities in the district—instead shares its jurisdictional area with the neighbouring Manitoulin District, whereas equivalent services in Greater Sudbury, which has the status of a single-tier municipality, are provided directly from the city.
With the city included, the district would have had a population of 183,077 in the 2016 census.
Whitefish River (boundaries include parts of both Sudbury and Manitoulin Districts)
Demographics
As a census division in the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Sudbury District had a population of 22,368 living in 9,915 of its 13,453 total private dwellings, a change of 3.8% from its 2016 population of 21,546. With a land area of 39,896.79 km2 (15,404.24 sq mi), it had a population density of 0.6/km2 (1.5/sq mi) in 2021.[1]
Canada census – Sudbury District community profile
The Sudbury District is served by Trans-Canada Highways17, which leads from the community of Walford (Sables-Spanish Rivers) in the west to the community of Warren (Markstay-Warren) in the east, and 69, which enters the district at French River and exits at the southern boundary of Greater Sudbury.
The Ontario government is converting Highway 69 to a freeway. Virtually the entire route of Highway 69 within the Sudbury District is now four-laned as of December 2021, with the completion of the segment between the French River and Grundy Lake Provincial Park, while the route narrows back to a two-lane highway in the Parry Sound District until widening back into Highway 400 at Carling. The freeway conversion of the remaining route, and its eventual renumbering as an extension of Highway 400, are expected in the future, although no exact date has been confirmed as of 2022 for the completion of the project.
Other primary provincial highways in the district are:
Highway 129, which runs from Highway 101 to the boundary of Algoma District south of Chapleau,
Highway 144, which runs from the northwestern city limits of Greater Sudbury north to the boundary of Timiskaming District, just outside Timmins.
The Sudbury District also has a number of secondary provincial highways, which are the analogue in a district to county or municipal roads in Southern Ontario. They are important connections to the communities they serve, but are not significant routes for through traffic. The secondary highways are:
^"1971 Census of Canada - Population Census Subdivisions (Historical)". Catalogue 92-702 Vol I, part 1 (Bulletin 1.1-2). Statistics Canada: 76, 139. July 1973.