| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 155,120 (by ancestry, 2016 Census ) [1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg | |
| Languages | |
| English · French · German · Italian | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity (Catholicism, Anabaptism (Amish, Mennonite, Hutterite)) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| German Canadians · French Canadians · Italian Canadians |
Swiss Canadians are Canadian citizens of Swiss ancestry or people who emigrated from Switzerland and reside in Canada. According to the 2016 Census there were 155,120 Canadians [2] who claimed Swiss ancestry, having an increase compared to those 146,830 in the 2011 Census. [3]
One of the earliest settlers in Canada was Pierre Miville (d. 1669). [4] Laurenz Ermatinger (1736 to 1789), a fur trader and merchant, arrived in Montreal from Switzerland and together with his son Charles Oakes (1776 to 1833), and Sebastian Freyvogel have explored the large Huron tract. [5] Many Swiss arrived in North America as part of the Swiss mercenaries, some of which later settled in Canada. One of these soldiers was Frederick Haldimand, who served in the British Army in North America during the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War. From 1778 to 1786, he served as Governor of the Province of Quebec. [6]
Another group of Swiss emigrants were Mennonites who originally settled in Pennsylvania and were descendants of Swiss Anabaptists. In 1786, a group of these Mennonites (led by John, Thielman and Steffen Kolb as wel as Franklin Albrecht and Frederich Hahn) settled in the Niagara Region, close to the Twenty Mile Creek. [6] [7] Another colony was founded by David Hoover on the north shore of Lake Erie in 1792. [6] Abraham Erb who founded Waterloo, was a Mennonite of Swiss ancestry from Pennsylvania. [6] Similarly, Benjamin Eby emigrated to Upper Canada in 1806 and purchased a large tract of land in what would later become Kitchener, Ontario. [6]
By 1871 about 3,000 Swiss had settled in Canada and in the time between 1887 and 1938, a reported additional 8,548 Swiss had moved to Canada. [4] With the passing of the Free Grants and Homestead Act in 1868, large areas of land became available for settlement. In 1973, a group of Swiss immigrants arrived in the Nipissing region, led by Elise von Koerber. [6] Peter Rindisbacher was a Swiss artist who specialized in painting the Western USA and Canada until his death in 1834.
Until WWII, most Swiss immigrants were farmers who settled in Canada. [8] This changed after WWII, when several Swiss firms opened offices in Canada, leading to immigration of educated Swiss personnel including engineers, professors and merchants. [4] [8] When farmland became unaffordable in Switzerland in the 1970s, a number of Swiss farmers bought farmland in Canada and settled there. [4] In the 1990s, rising unemployment in Switzerland led to another wave of emigration. [4]
According to the 2011 National Household Survey, [9] the cities with the most people claiming Swiss ethnic origin are as follow: | According to the 2011 National Household Survey, [9] the provinces and territories with the most people claiming Swiss ethnic origin are as follow:
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The German diaspora consists of German people and their descendants who live outside of Germany. The term is used in particular to refer to the aspects of migration of German speakers from Central Europe to different countries around the world. This definition describes the "German" term as a sociolinguistic group as opposed to the national one since the emigrant groups came from different regions with diverse cultural practices and different varieties of German. For instance, the Alsatians and Hessians were often simply called "Germans" once they set foot in their new homelands.
The Pennsylvania Dutch, also referred to as Pennsylvania Germans, are an ethnic group in Ontario, Pennsylvania and other regions of Canada and the United States, most predominantly in the US Mid-Atlantic region. They largely originate from German-speaking people in the Palatinate region of Germany, and settled in Pennsylvania during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. While most were from the Palatinate region of Germany, a lesser number were from other German-speaking areas of Germany and Europe, including Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Saxony, and Rhineland in Germany, Switzerland, and the Alsace–Lorraine region of France.
The Regional Municipality of Waterloo is a metropolitan area of Southern Ontario, Canada. It contains the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo, and the townships of North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot and Woolwich. Kitchener, the largest city, is the seat of government.
The Township of Wilmot is a rural township in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo in southwestern Ontario, Canada.
German Canadians are Canadian citizens of German ancestry or Germans who emigrated to and reside in Canada. According to the 2016 census, there are 3,322,405 Canadians with full or partial German ancestry. Some immigrants came from what is today Germany, while larger numbers came from German settlements in Eastern Europe and Imperial Russia; others came from parts of the German Confederation, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland.
This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the Germanosphere in Europe, German-speaking minorities are present in many other countries and on all six inhabited continents.
Polish Canadians are citizens of Canada with Polish ancestry, and Poles who immigrated to Canada from abroad. At the 2016 Census, there were 1,106,585 Canadians who claimed full or partial Polish heritage.
Hungarian Canadians are persons in Canada of Hungarian ancestry. According to the 2016 Census, there are 348,085 Canadians of Hungarian ancestry. The Hungarian minority is the 24th largest ethnic group of Canada. The bulk of Hungarian immigration occurred after World War II, with the wave peaking after the 1956 Hungarian revolution against communist rule, when over 100,000 Hungarian refugees went to Canada. The Hungarian Canadian community is among the country's multiple ethnicities; Canada is one of the top five countries of the Hungarian diaspora.
Swiss Americans are Americans of Swiss descent.
The Dutch diaspora consists of the Dutch and their descendants living outside the Netherlands.
Slovak Americans are Americans of Slovak descent. In the 1990 Census, Slovak Americans made up the third-largest portion of Slavic ethnic groups. There are currently about 790,000 people of Slovak descent living in the United States.
Scottish Canadians are people of Scottish descent or heritage living in Canada. As the third-largest ethnic group in Canada and amongst the first Europeans to settle in the country, Scottish people have made a large impact on Canadian culture since colonial times. According to the 2016 Census of Canada, the number of Canadians claiming full or partial Scottish descent is 4,799,010, or 13.93% of the nation's total population. Prince Edward Island has the highest population of Scottish descendants at 41%.
The Swiss diaspora refers to Swiss people living abroad, also referred to as "fifth Switzerland", alluding to the fourfold linguistic division within the country. The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) cares for Swiss people living abroad.
The English diaspora consists of English people and their descendants who emigrated from England. The diaspora is concentrated in the English-speaking world in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, South Africa, India and to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe, Zambia and continental Europe.
The Albanian diaspora are the ethnic Albanians and their descendants living outside of Albania, Kosovo, southeastern Montenegro, western North Macedonia, southeastern Serbia, northwestern Greece and Southern Italy.
European Canadians or Euro-Canadians, are Canadians who were either born in or can trace their ancestry to the continent of Europe. They form the largest panethnic group within Canada.
Christianity is the most adhered-to religion in Canada, with 19,373,330 Canadians, or 53.3%, identifying themselves as of the 2021 census. The preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms refers to God. The French colonization beginning in the 17th century established a Roman Catholic francophone population in New France, especially Acadia and Lower Canada. British colonization brought waves of Anglicans and other Protestants to Upper Canada, now Ontario. The Russian Empire spread Orthodox Christianity in a small extent to the tribes in the far north and western coasts, particularly hyperborean nomads like the Inuit. Orthodoxy would arrive in mainland Canada with immigrants from the eastern and southern Austro-Hungarian Empire and western Russian Empire starting in the 1890s; then refugees from the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, Greece and elsewhere during the last half of the 20th century.
The Kashubian diaspora resulted from the emigration of Kashubians mainly in two waves occurring in the second half of the 19th century. The majority of Kashubian emigrants settled in the United States; others emigrated to Canada and Brazil. An online genealogical project, "The Great Kashubian Migration," is devoted to tracking their settlement patterns. Their reasons for emigration varied. Until the Franco-Prussian War, Kashubians emigrated primarily for economic reasons. After the Franco-Prussian War and especially due to the Kulturkampf, Kashubian emigration accelerated as socio-political factors came into play. In his 1899 book, Statystyka ludnosci kaszubskiej, the Kashubophile linguist and sociologist Stefan Ramult estimated that 130,700 Kashubians were living in the Americas.
Emigration from Malta or the Maltese diaspora consists of Maltese people and their lineal descendants who emigrated from Malta. It was an important demographic phenomenon throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading to the creation of large diaspora’s concentrated in English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States.
Yugoslav Canadians are Canadians of full or partial Yugoslav ancestry. At the 2016 Census, the total number of Canadians whose origins lie in former Yugoslavia, majority of whom indicated specific ethnic origin, was 386,340 or 1.12% of the total population.
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