Area population hits 250,000

The 250,000 total appeared for the first time in a Statistics Canada report Thursday that looked at the population of Canada's census metropolitan areas at the end of 2008.

The symbolic threshold is important "because it's documenting the continued growth of the area," said Bill Holden, manager of the city's research and information resource centre.

At 10,000 more people than the 2006 census, metropolitan Saskatoon ranks fourth in the country in terms of growth, jumping more than four per cent over two years.

Saskatoon's population has been bolstered by immigrants and people moving in from other provinces, bucking a decades-long trend where growth came almost entirely from small towns and reserves in the province.

Regina and area jumped 3.3 per cent in the two-year period to 206,700, ranking ninth in the country in growth.

"It means the potential for more semi-professional sports teams," Filion said. "If you have a symphony, the more population you have, the better it will be. Those are things that grow and improve with the size of a city.

"You're self-sustaining," he said. "You need to have everything that bigger cities have on a small scale."

In the last decade, the surrounding towns and cities have begun to outpace the city's growth, Holden said, reversing a longtime trend that saw Saskatoon as one of the only cities in the country where the city proper was outgrowing its surrounding communities.

If growth continues at two per cent per year, the population within city limits, estimated at 218,000, will hit the 250,000 mark around 2016, Holden said.