At the time of the census in May 2001, the population of the
city of Hamilton was 490,268. The entire province of Ontario was
11,410,050 people. In the five years between 1996 and 2001, the
population of Hamilton grew by 6.1%, which is an average growth
for Canadian cities.
Nearly one-quarter of the metropolitan area population of Hamilton
was foreign-born, making Hamilton the Canadian city with the third
highest proportion of foreign-born citizens after Toronto (44%)
and Vancouver (38%).
Hamilton is overwhelmingly populated by people of a white ethnic
background. Ninety percent are of a white ethnic background; the
remainder consists of East Indian, Chinese, and Caribbean origins.
About 8% of immigrants of the 1990s cited Yugoslavia as their
country of birth.