The North Shore’s population has grown by more than 5,400 in five years, according to census data released this week by Statistics Canada.

North and West Vancouver together grew by 3.2 per cent from 2006 to 2011, according to numbers collected in last year’s short-form census. The new arrivals push the North Shore’s total population past the 175,000 mark for the first time ever.

The lion’s share of that growth was soaked up by the rapidly densifying city of North Vancouver, which saw 3,031 new residents move into the 12-square-kilometre municipality. That increase, a gain of 6.7 per cent, means more than a quarter of the North Shore’s residents are now crammed into less than five per cent of the community’s land area.

The city’s growth rate far exceeded those of its neighbours, with the District of North Vancouver expanding just 2.2 per cent in five years and West Vancouver growing a meagre 1.3 per cent. All three municipalities, however, came in below the provincial average; over all, British Columbia has grown seven per cent since 2006.

Tuesday’s release, the first of four that the agency will be putting out this year based on the 2011 data, gave little detail about individual municipalities, but it did offer some insight into the drivers of growth at the national level.

Canada’s population increased by 5.9 per cent between 2006 and 2011, driving up our head count to 33.5 million. That rate, the highest in the G-8, was slightly faster than in the preceding five-year interval, when the country expanded 5.4 per cent.

Most of that growth can be chalked up to immigration, according to Stats Can. Over the past 10 years, approximately two thirds of the change in Canada’s population was the result of net international migration, while one third was natural increase.

The bulk of the newcomers settled in Canada’s largest metropolitan areas — Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal — which together are now home to 35 per cent of the country’s population, according to the agency.

The next census release is due out at the end of May.

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jweldon@nsnews.com