Regional Overview

Population

Population Change, Buffalo Niagara, 1990-2000

Click on graphic to enlarge

The 2000 U.S. Census and the 2001 Canadian Census report a population of 2,492,550 in the Buffalo Niagara region. Approximately two-thirds of the region's residents (64%, or 1,591,708 people) live in Western New York with the other 36% (900,842) in the City of Hamilton and the Niagara Regional Municipality of Southern Ontario. The regional population has increased 1.5% since 1990, the product of a 6.1% increase in Southern Ontario's population since 1991 and a 1.2% decline in Western New York's base of residents since 1990 (see chart, Population Change, Buffalo Niagara, 1990-2000).

Most of Buffalo Niagara's population—over 2 million people, or 82%—is considered urban. The most urbanized areas—Erie and Niagara Counties, the Regional Municipality of Niagara, and the City of Hamilton—are in the northern parts of the region on both sides of the international border. Chautauqua County, which comprises the Jamestown metropolitan area, follows with 59% of its population living in urban settlements. The remaining five counties of Western New York—Genesee, Cattaraugus, Orleans, Wyoming, and Allegany—are predominantly rural, however these counties are becoming increasingly urbanized.

Percent Urbanized, 2000
Click on graphic to enlarge Data from the 2000 U.S. Census and 2001 Canadian Census indicate the City of Hamilton is still the region's most populous jurisdiction (490,268), followed by the City of Buffalo (292,648), St. Catharines (129,170), the Town of Amherst (116,510), and the Town of Cheektowaga (94,019) (see chart, Percent Urbanized, 2000). The region is comprised of other metropolitan cities with smaller populations: Niagara Falls, Ontario (78,815), Niagara Falls, New York (55,593), Welland (48,702), and Jamestown (31,730).

Outside the region's cities, a majority of Buffalo Niagara's municipalities are less populous. Of the region's 187 cities and towns (including villages), 170 (91%) have populations smaller than 25,000. Considerably more than half of the region's cities and towns—117, or 63%—have fewer than 5,000 inhabitants.

Population Growth, 1990-2000
Click on graphic to enlarge Municipal-level population change has varied across the region since 1990 (1991 for Southern Ontario). Most of Western New York's cities, many of their surrounding jurisdictions, and clusters of towns throughout Orleans, Genesee, Chautauqua, southern Cattaraugus, and eastern Allegany Counties lost population between 1990 and 2000. Buffalo and Niagara Falls each lost over 10% of their residents, while the cities of Olean, Jamestown, Tonawanda, Lockport, Dunkirk, and Lackawanna each declined by 6% to 9.5%. Areas with greater than 5% growth since 1990 clustered in the western Niagara Peninsula of Southern Ontario, as well as parts of Niagara, Wyoming, and the northern Southern Tier counties in Western New York. Among the communities with especially high population growth are the towns of Clarence (+30.3%), Wheatfield (+26.6%), Lancaster (+21.2%), and Lockport (+18.4%) in Western New York, and the towns of Lincoln (+20.2%), Grimsby (+15%) and Pelham (+14.6%) in southern Ontario (see map, Population Growth, 1990-2000).