Selecting a Location of Interest
When the Portal first opens, the default view is the Overview option, with Canada selected as the location of interest.
There are three ways to choose a location of interest:
Using the Drop-Down Menu (Breadcrumb)
Sample Drop-Down Menu with Ottawa selected
The drop-down menu organizes the available locations of interest in a hierarchical fashion from the Province to the Met to smaller area locations. Smaller areas locations can include Zone, Census Subdivision, Census Tract and Neighbourhood. Census Subdivision and Census Tract boundaries are defined by Statistics Canada, while Zones and Neighbourhood boundaries are defined by groupings of Census Tracts.
To narrow the scope of the data, click on the down arrow beside any location listed in the drop down menu bar to view a list of sub-geographic options.
Click on an option to select it. That selected location will now appear in the toolbar and the map will zoom to that location and level of geography. The location will become the location of focus in the data panel.
Your currently selected location of interest will always be highlighted by a red map point icon in the drop-down menu tool bar and in the data panel.
The menu bar becomes a breadcrumb trail of drill-down geographic locations. Click on a higher level of geography within the breadcrumb trail to return to that location on the map.
Using the Map
Navigating the Map
Orange boundaries indicate areas for which data is available
Census Metropolitan Areas and Cities and other populated places (Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations and other centres with a populations of at least 10,000 people) are displayed as orange boundaries on the map. These orange regions indicate data is available. Zooming into orange areas will provide more detailed data.
To pan the map click and drag to the desired position. Then use one of these techniques to zoom in or out:
- the mouse wheel
- the zoom in / out buttons located on the map
- double-click on the area of interest (zoom in only)
Making a Selection with the Map
Click once on your location of interest to select it. A red map point icon and a small popup box titled Choose your location of interest will appear. Click on the name of your location of interest in the box to specify and select your desired level of geography. To select AND zoom to that location on the map, click on the magnifying glass icon next to your desired location in the popup box.
Your chosen location will now become the location of focus in the data panel. The current location of interest will always be highlighted by a red map point icon in the drop-down menu tool bar and in the data panel.
Changing the Submarket Boundary Options
Zoom in even further and submarket boundaries will begin to appear as black outlines within the Met boundaries.
At this zoom level, the Submarket Boundary popup box will appear. To change submarket boundary options, including Zone, Census Subdivision, Neighbourhood, and Census Tract, click on the desired boundary type. Then click on the map to see and select the new location options available in the new boundary selection.
Smaller area locations from which to choose a location of interest include Zone, Census Subdivision, Neighbourhood and Census Tract. Census Subdivision and Census Tract boundaries are defined by Statistics Canada, while Zones and Neighbourhood boundaries are defined by groupings of Census Tracts.
Options that appear in light grey indicate that they are not available for your current location of interest.
Searching for a Location
Type a place name into the search box. As you type, locations matching the typed letters will be displayed in a popup box under the search box. A list of potentially matching choices will appear under the category titled Portal Locations. Click on any of these locations to see a table of high level data for that location in the panel to the right. Click on the title above the data table to view the Overview report for that location. You can also choose from a list of Publications and Tables based on your chosen location.
Sample Search popup box.
Similar location names for which there is no Portal data available, will appear under the title Other Locations in the search popup box. Select one of these, to see related locations for which Portal data is available. Click on one of these Other Related Locations to change the focus of the information displayed in the application.
Sample Search popup box.
You can also type in any location, topic or publication title and click the Search button to search through all content available in the Housing Market Information Portal. A search results page will display a list of links based upon your search criteria.
