Alberta · Civic arena
Calgary drinking water hardness is 279 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#222 of 343
47% City Score XP
7/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
Calgary packs 7 of eight open-data pillars into its composite standing. Tap a rival below to see how the hometown stacks up head-to-head.
Rivalries on deck
Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas.
Full Calgary water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Hinton · vs DevonHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for Calgary from municipal and provincial water records. Hardness and grade are published readings.
Drinking water first, then permits, tax, internet, radon, and hazards for Calgary.
Calgary sits at City Score rank #222 with a standing of 47%, from 7 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 18 places versus 2022 (#240 → #222).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #262 of 343 (2025); indoor radon rank #210 of 343 at 129 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #116 of 343 (11.22 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.
Arena loadout
Arena rank #222 of 343
7/8 pillars · main XP bar
Rank #1
Rank #262
Rank #133
Rank #210
No placement
Rank #116
Achievements
Published residential mill-rate context for Calgary.
Southeast river sanctuary with a Nature Centre on the City parks roster. It is the quiet counterweight to Stoney Trail headlines and busy
Downtown river island park on the municipal list, close enough to office towers that lunch walks and summer gatherings share the same
City flood pages treat the Bow River and Elbow River as a paired watch list, with the flood dial as the visual locals check when flows rise.
Where Calgary sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
Calgarians organize the city around water and pavement in equal measure. The Bow River and Elbow River meet in the core, and City flood pages still point people to the flood dial the way other towns check a forecast. Downtown, Prince's Island Park sits in the river like a lunch-hour escape; Olympic Plaza holds the civic square rhythm. Northwest, Nose Hill Park lifts you above the grid. Southwest along the bank, Edworthy Park keeps the same river company, while Weaselhead Flats holds the quieter natural stretch. Southeast, Inglewood Bird Sanctuary is the place you go when you want birds over billboards.
Commute talk leans on Stoney Trail, the ring-road shorthand that shows up whenever traffic or road safety leads the Herald or CBC Calgary. On the rails, Calgarians ride the CTrain on the Red Line and Blue Line, and Victoria Park/Stampede station ties downtown rails to the grounds without anyone needing a brochure. Green Line stays the big LRT file on the civic agenda. Northwest, Bowness still owns Tour de Bowness, and Bowness Park pairs the neighbourhood with the riverside. Heritage Day marks the August long weekend when City hours shift and the calendar feels local again.
WestJet stories keep climbing local fronts because airline labour and flight snags land here first. When something civic breaks, 311 is the number on calgary.ca; Fair Entry is the means-tested path for City programs. On the OpenStats City Score for 2026, Calgary sits at rank 24 of 125. Rankings aside, the hometown read is rivers you watch, a ring road you name, and CTrain stations you can point to without a map.
Drawn from City of Calgary, City of Calgary parks locations, City of Calgary flood information, Calgary Transit, City of Calgary newsroom, Calgary Herald, CBC Calgary.
City Score from 2016–2025 across eight open-data pillars. Individual study placements are listed in the panels below.
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.
Connectivity · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by estimated best advertised download (Mbps). Anchored to the current ISED National Broadband Data vintage, then backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber-arrival and 50/10 availability paths so relative ranks can change over the decade. Not a claim of audited historical hex maps for every year.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Construction · OpenStats
OpenStats
Cities ranked by calendar-year building permit value. Direct rows sum Statistics Canada Table 34-10-0292-01. Cities without a direct reading use population × provincial per-capita permit intensity (estimated), so every seed city has a year-varying construction signal.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Composite · OpenStats
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). Growth and CSI use StatCan annual tables; permits, 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
Safety · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index (Table 35-10-0026-01). Rank 1 is highest CSI (worse). Values are CMA where a metro match exists, otherwise provincial CSI. Hometown pages label the grain.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Water · OpenStats
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
Water · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by reported lead (µg/L) on the OpenStats water atlas. Carried across panel years until annual municipal report panels are ingested.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Health · OpenStats
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Health Canada survey mean indoor radon (Bq/m³). Rank 1 is the highest mean. Decade panel years without a new survey carry the CMA survey vintage forward; they are not annual retests.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Growth · OpenStats
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
Property tax · OpenStats
OpenStats
Municipalities ranked by residential mill rate. Rank 1 is the highest rate. Published municipal years are used when available; gaps are interpolated or follow the provincial median path so the tax pillar moves year to year for every city.
10 editions · 2016–2025
Housing
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Average rent for purpose-built 2-bedroom apartments (all tenants) from CMHC Rental Market Survey. Rank 1 = lowest average rent among covered CMAs.
Single edition · 2025
Only one published edition places Calgary in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Housing
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Purpose-built rental apartment vacancy rate from CMHC Rental Market Survey (October). Rank 1 = highest vacancy (most available rental stock among covered CMAs).
2 editions · 2024–2025
Housing
Demographia / Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Canadian subset of Demographia median multiple (median house price / median household income). Rank 1 = most affordable (lowest median multiple) among Canadian major markets in the international survey.
3 editions · 2024–2026
Livability
Economist Intelligence Unit
Ranks ~173 cities on stability, healthcare, culture & environment, education, and infrastructure. Full dataset is paid; OpenStats stores only ranks and scores published in free press releases and news coverage.
3 editions · 2023–2025
Livability
The Globe and Mail
2023 data partnership with Environics Analytics ranking 439 Canadian communities on ten livability categories.
Single edition · 2023
Only one published edition places Calgary in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Livability
Maclean's
Successor-style municipal livability ranking published by Maclean's for 2019 and 2021 (no 2020 edition).
Single edition · 2019
Only one published edition places Calgary in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Quality of life
Mercer
Expat-oriented quality of living ranking across 39 factors in 10 categories. OpenStats stores Canadian cities named in free Mercer press releases (typically top-25 highlights), not the full paid ranking.
2 editions · 2023–2024
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
5 editions · 2013–2018
Housing
National Bank of Canada Economics and Strategy
Ranked by Mortgage Payment as a Percentage of Income (MPPI) on a representative home. Rank 1 = highest MPPI (least affordable). Free quarterly Housing Affordability Monitor tables.
2 editions · 2025–2026
Quality of life
Numbeo
Crowd-sourced composite Quality of Life Index. Historical snapshots are free on Numbeo ranking pages; OpenStats cites Canadian cities from those public pages (cite_only). Higher index scores are better; ranks are global position on the snapshot page.
3 editions · 2024–2026
Housing
RBC Economics
Ranked by RBC aggregate Housing Affordability Measure (% of median pre-tax household income for mortgage, property taxes, and utilities on a benchmark home). Rank 1 = highest ownership-cost burden (least affordable). CMA markets mapped to primary city slugs.
2 editions · 2024–2025
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
City flood pages treat the Bow River and Elbow River as a paired watch list, with the flood dial as the visual locals check when flows rise.
Calgary Transit branding sticks to CTrain, and service talk names the Red Line and Blue Line the way drivers name freeways.
Tour de Bowness keeps a cycling day rooted in the Bowness neighbourhood rather than a downtown stage set.
Heritage Day is the August civic holiday the City uses to reset service hours and weekend plans.
A northwest escarpment park big enough that Calgarians treat it as a prairie overlook inside city limits. Trails climb above the grid and put the city's sprawl in scale.
Downtown river island park on the municipal list, close enough to office towers that lunch walks and summer gatherings share the same paths. The Bow River does the rest of the framing.
Southeast river sanctuary with a Nature Centre on the City parks roster. It is the quiet counterweight to Stoney Trail headlines and busy CTrain stations.
Northwest riverside park paired with the Bowness neighbourhood that also hosts Tour de Bowness. Locals use it as a family stretch of bank when the core feels crowded.
When Calgary 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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