Construction · OpenStats
OpenStats Building Permit Value
OpenStats
Cities ranked by total Statistics Canada building permit value in the calendar year. Rank 1 is highest value.
4 editions · 2023–2026
#12
Latest · 2026 · of 42
Score 772090000
Nova Scotia
Halifax
Harbour capital of 1749
Halifax in brief
Halifax began in 1749 when Edward Cornwallis planted a British town on the harbour that Mi’kmaq peoples already knew well. It replaced Annapolis Royal as Nova Scotia’s capital and quickly became a naval and merchant anchor for the Atlantic.
Dartmouth, Bedford, and the old county later joined into one regional municipality, but the harbour still sets the pace: ferries, container ships, and fog that arrives like a soft curtain.
Fairview Lawn Cemetery’s Titanic graves and the Halifax Explosion memorials are sobering stops; the buttons below are for the day-to-day data.
Drawn from Wikipedia, Atlas Obscura.
Permits, tax, radon & more for Halifax
Open the live numbers for Halifax. Each link goes to the original topic page for this city.
Follow Halifax by email
When Halifax 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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#36
City Score rank
67%
City Score
6
Owned lists in score
City Score over time
The green line averages OpenStats-owned rankings (radon, permit value, mill rates). Grey dots mark every published placement across all studies below.
Rankings for Halifax
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.
Composite · OpenStats
OpenStats City Score
OpenStats
Average standing across OpenStats-owned rankings built from public data (currently radon, building permit value, and residential mill rates). Each placement is scored from 0–1 within its edition, then averaged. External livability lists stay on hometown pages as separate published appearances.
Single edition · 2026
#36
Published · 2026 · of 125
Score 0.674
Only one published edition places Halifax in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Health · OpenStats
OpenStats Highest Indoor Radon
OpenStats
Communities ranked by Health Canada survey mean indoor radon (Bq/m³). Rank 1 is the highest mean.
Single edition · 2026
#11
Published · 2026 · of 117
Score 194.7
Only one published edition places Halifax in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Property tax · OpenStats
OpenStats Residential Mill Rates
OpenStats
Municipalities ranked by residential mill rate. Rank 1 is the highest published rate (higher tax burden).
Single edition · 2026
#5
Published · 2026 · of 5
Score 11.15
Only one published edition places Halifax in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Housing
CMHC Average 2-Bedroom Rent — Lowest Rent
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
#12
Published · 2025 · of 18
Score 1826
Only one published edition places Halifax in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Housing
CMHC Purpose-Built Rental Vacancy — Highest Vacancy
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
#17
Latest · 2025 · of 18
Score 2.7
Livability
Maclean's Best Communities
Maclean's
Successor-style municipal livability ranking published by Maclean's for 2019 and 2021 (no 2020 edition).
Single edition · 2021
#1
Published · 2021 · of 415
Only one published edition places Halifax in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.
Livability
MoneySense Best Places to Live
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
#226
Latest · 2018 · of 415
Quality of life
Numbeo Quality of Life Index by City
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
#108
Latest · 2026 · of 304
Score 176.8
Housing
RBC Housing Affordability — Least Affordable Markets
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
#6
Latest · 2025 · of 13
Score 42.3
Worth knowing in Halifax
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
Halifax, officially the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), is the capital and most populous municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada.
It consists of four former municipalities that were amalgamated in 1996: Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, and Halifax County.
The 1917 Halifax Explosion killed nearly 2,000 people after the munitions ship Mont-Blanc detonated in the harbour.
Places to see
Fairview Lawn Cemetery
The final resting place of 121 RMS Titanic victims, 42 of whom may never be identified.
McNabs Island
This harbour island is a garden of decay with abandoned forts, homes, a quarantine potter's field, and other ruins across nearly 1,000 acres.
Halifax Explosion Memorial
Memorials mark the 1917 harbour explosion that devastated the city—the largest human-made blast before nuclear weapons.
Maud Lewis' Painted House
The tiny painted home of folk artist Maud Lewis is preserved inside the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
