Se você adivinhou Toronto, you wouldn’t be wrong.

A Toronto metropolitan area, with a regional population of more than 5 milhões, é o lar de cerca de 2.3 million people who were born outside of Canada.

But you might be surprised to learn that the Vancouver suburb of Richmond is the city with the highest percentage of immigrant residents.

According to Richmond’s most recent census (2006), “Immigrants make up 57.4% of the city’s population, which is the highest proportion of any municipality in Canada.” The immigrant population of Greater Toronto is just under 50% of the region’s total population.

Mais do que 80 percent of immigrants to Richmond come from Asia e no Oriente Médio, particularly China (26.8%) e Hong Kong (23%). Pouco mais 10 percent come from Europe (especially the UK), with another five percent hailing from the Americas or elsewhere in the world.

Curiosamente, a significant majority of Richmond’s immigrants have been in Canada long enough to have been granted Canadian citizenship. Mais do que 86% of Richmond residents are Canadian citizens.

Em todo o Canadá, sobre 20 percent of Canadian residents were born outside the country, approximately one out of every five people. Em os EUA, em contraste, immigrants make up only about 12 percent of the population.

Fotografia © Carolyn B. Heller