Bridgewater, Nova Scotia
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Nova Scotia · Civic arena

Bridgewater

Bridgewater drinking water hardness is 252 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.

Civic arena · hometown HUD

Bridgewater

Town8,790 pop
53XP
#123

#123 of 343

53% City Score XP

RisingSurface
City Score XP

4/8 pillars on the board

53%#123

Decade trail

Bridgewater packs 4 of eight open-data pillars into its composite standing. Tap a rival below to see how the hometown stacks up head-to-head.

Bridgewater drinking water

Regional estimate from nearest municipal sample

Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas. This page uses a regional estimate — open the water atlas for method notes.

Hardness
252 mg/L
very hard
pH
8
Lead
0.4 μg/L

Full Bridgewater water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Kentville · vs WolfvilleHardness guide

Watershed to tap · system map

How Bridgewater's water works

Source, treatment, and distribution for Bridgewater from municipal and provincial water records. Open the animated map for the full watershed-to-tap diagram — no nested topic navigation here.

Local numbers for Bridgewater

Permits, tax, internet, radon, hazards, drinking water, and sports rankings where a CHL hometown applies.

How Bridgewater scores

Rising+15

Bridgewater sits at City Score rank #123 with a standing of 53%, from 4 of 8 open-data pillars (tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, growth, safety). Missing pillars score at median standing so thin coverage cannot inflate the rank. Rising 15 places versus 2022 (#138 → #123).

Published study placements for Bridgewater are charted below when available. Topic atlases carry the underlying municipal readings for the same place.

In the 2025 City Score edition, Bridgewater carries a City Score standing of 53% (rank #123 of 343) with 4 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 4 points above the Nova Scotia peer average across 9 ranked cities. Within Nova Scotia, Bridgewater ranks #3 of 9 on City Score.

The strongest signal in the current chart is population growth (standing 81%, rank #65 of 343, +2.3% annual growth). The weakest observed pillar is drinking-water hardness (standing 11%, rank #39 of 343).

Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 252 mg/L as CaCO₃ for Bridgewater. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.

#123
Arena rank (of 343)
53%
City Score
4
Pillars observed
Rising+15
vs 2022
#138 → #123

Arena loadout

Topic XP bars

Arena rank #123 of 343

City Score

4/8 pillars · main XP bar

53%#123
Drinking water

Pillar avg · hardness #39

28%
Building permits

No placement

—
Internet

Rank #138

60%
Radon

No placement

—
Hazards

Rank #186

54%
Property tax

No placement

—

Bridgewater pillar standing

Eight equal-weight City Score pillars, 2025 panel year.

TaxPermitsNetRadonWaterHazardsGrowthCrime

Source: OpenStats composite / study editions

City Score standing trend

Standing percentage by panel year (higher is better).

Years: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

Source: OpenStats composite timeseries

Achievements

Rising +15Surface water supply

Hometown notes

City profile

Older hometown notes stay on the desk archive (noindex) — this section shows recent highlights only.

Bridgewater in brief

Bridgewater is town in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, Canada, at the navigable limit of the LaHave River. Long before municipal boundaries, Indigenous nations already knew this valley and its seasons.

Mills, mines, or farm-service industries rewrote the skyline every couple of decades. Ask three locals which decade mattered most and you will get three different answers, all delivered with a grin.

Bridgewater service economy ties to county seats, highway corridors, and regional employers that keep main street businesses busy through the year. On OpenStats City Score, Bridgewater ranks 329 of 343. Municipal recreation, parks, trails, and utility pages remain the best live guide to how Bridgewater explains itself today.

Permits, mill rates, broadband, radon, hazards, and water quality may show measured values, regional estimates, or empty states until a verified source is linked. That is the same honest pattern OpenStats uses for smaller places already in the corpus, and it keeps Bridgewater comparable on the hometown board without inventing numbers. Seasonal recreation programming, winter maintenance, and summer festival calendars still fill the municipal news feed most years. Library branches, arena ice, and aquatics schedules are the practical anchors families check before planning a weekend in Bridgewater. Seasonal recreation programming, winter maintenance, and summer festival calendars still fill the municipal news feed most years. Library branches, arena ice, and aquatics schedules are the practical anchors families check before planning a weekend in Bridgewater.

Drawn from Municipality of Bridgewater, CBC Nova Scotia.

City Score over time

City Score from 2016–2025 across eight open-data pillars. Individual study placements are listed in the panels below.

0%25%50%75%100%2016201720182019202020212022202320242025
OpenStats City Score

Rankings for Bridgewater

Each study below is its own ranking. Where a study has more than one edition for this city, the chart shows standing across those years only.

Safety · OpenStats

Crime severity not placed

Statistics Canada does not publish a police-service Crime Severity Index that OpenStats can match to Bridgewater without copying a province, CMA, or another city. The safety pillar scores at median standing (50%) on City Score, the same rule used for other missing pillars.

Connectivity · OpenStats

OpenStats Broadband Download Speeds

OpenStats

Cities ranked by household-weighted maximum advertised download (Mbps) from ISED National Broadband Data hex ISP rows, with hex-to-city assignment by population-weighted gravity. The headline 2025 score is the dwelling-weighted mean of per-hex technology ceilings (fibre and cable at 1 Gbps, DSL lower). Household-weighted 50/10 availability (%) is stored on atlas rows as avail_5010_pct. Earlier panel years backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber and availability paths.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#138
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 674.1

Composite · OpenStats

OpenStats City Score

OpenStats

Dimensional average of OpenStats open-data pillars for each panel year 2016-2025: tax, construction, connectivity, indoor air, water, seismic hazard, population growth, and crime severity. Each series is scored 0-1 within its edition; series in the same pillar are averaged, then all eight pillars are averaged with equal weight. Missing pillars score at median standing (0.5). Crime severity uses StatCan police-service CSI only (Tables 35-10-0026-01 and 35-10-0063-01); cities without a police-service match take median standing on the safety pillar. Growth uses StatCan CSD estimates; construction uses verified municipal building-permit value per resident (population field on each city record, 2021 Census vintage); mill rates and broadband use live rows plus documented year-varying estimates where needed. Radon, water, and PGA may be survey/model vintages carried forward and are flagged when static for more than two years. External commercial livability lists are never inputs.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#123
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.53

Water · OpenStats

OpenStats Drinking Water Hardness

OpenStats

Communities ranked by municipal drinking-water hardness (mg/L as CaCO₃). Hardness changes slowly; the atlas vintage is carried across panel years and flagged when static for more than two years.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#39
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 252

Growth · OpenStats

OpenStats Population Growth

OpenStats

Cities ranked by year-over-year population growth from Statistics Canada annual CSD estimates (Table 17-10-0155-01). Rank 1 is fastest growth. A few places without a clean CSD match use a provincial-path estimate anchored to seed population.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#65
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.023043834494059813

Hazards · OpenStats

OpenStats Seismic Hazard (PGA)

OpenStats

Communities ranked by NRCan peak ground acceleration (higher = stronger shaking hazard). Rank 1 is highest PGA. The seismic model is multi-year; values are carried across the City Score panel and flagged as static until NRCan publishes a new generation.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#186
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.042

Worth knowing in Bridgewater

Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.

Places to see

Bridgewater downtown

Historic main street blocks, local shops, and civic buildings remain the walking-tour version of Bridgewater.

Follow Bridgewater by email

When Bridgewater moves in a ranking, posts new permit figures, or lands in a study, get a short note. A few sends a year, only when something changes.

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