Ontario · Civic arena
North Bay drinking water hardness is 90 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.
Civic arena · hometown HUD
#57 of 343
59% City Score XP
7/8 pillars on the board
Decade trail
North Bay 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.
Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas.
Full North Bay water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Prince Edward County · vs Haldimand CountyHardness guide
Watershed to tap · system map
Source, treatment, and distribution for North Bay from municipal and provincial water records. Hardness and grade are published readings.
Drinking water first, then permits, tax, internet, radon, and hazards for North Bay.
North Bay sits at City Score rank #57 with a standing of 59%, 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. Dropping 34 places versus 2022 (#23 → #57).
Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #193 of 343 (2025); indoor radon rank #196 of 343 at 140 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #264 of 343 (8.22 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 #57 of 343
7/8 pillars · main XP bar
Rank #323
Rank #193
Rank #205
Rank #196
No placement
Rank #264
Achievements
Published residential mill-rate context for North Bay.
Lake Nipissing shoreline with walkway, marina, and the Kiwanis Bandshell. Locals treat it as the civic living room when the weather
Municipal beach used for summer aqua fitness and easy lake days. One of the simpler ways to get onto Nipissing without a boat launch plan.
Tourism North Bay brands the city as the Gateway to the North.
Where North Bay sits in published building-permit figures for July 2026.
North Bay sits on a land bridge between Lake Nipissing and Trout Lake, and tourism still introduces it as the Gateway to the North. Municipal history treats the Lake Nipissing waterfront as the heartbeat of town: walkway, gardens, museum, and public marina facing the bigger lake, while Trout Lake supplies drinking water and gives Trout Lake Road its name. When reconstruction crews take another bite of Trout Lake Road at Laurentian Avenue, or when Lakeshore Drive gets new curb work, everyone knows which corridor is under the cones.
Railways built the hub. Canadian Pacific hugged Lake Nipissing to dodge the North Bay escarpment, and later CN and Ontario Northland traffic made the city a supply centre for lumber and mining country farther out. The city incorporated in 1925 and later amalgamated with surrounding townships, keeping a large geographic footprint for a northern Ontario centre. Today Nipissing University and Canadore College share the Highway 17 west campus edge, with Duchesnay Falls cascading through the Education Centre Trails just behind them. Hikers treat those falls as a four-season errand, not a distant day trip.
Summer still gathers at the Kiwanis Bandshell for the Summer Concert Series, and The Cove Beach hosts easy water fitness when the lake is warm. The Steve Omischl Sports Field Complex is adding a Community Recreation Centre aimed at an August 2026 opening, another sign that indoor sport is catching up to the shoreline habit. BayToday keeps the local desk busy with YYB flights, downtown errands, and neighbourhood notices. The through-line is simple: a transportation city that never forgot it lives between two lakes.
Drawn from City of North Bay - Our History, City of North Bay, Tourism North Bay, Tourism North Bay - Duchesnay Falls, BayToday.
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
Livability
MoneySense
Annual composite ranking of Canadian municipalities on economy, housing, crime, health, and weather.
4 editions · 2014–2018
Distinctive local notes and places, each linked to its source.
Tourism North Bay brands the city as the Gateway to the North.
Trout Lake is the source of the city's drinking water and the headwater of the Mattawa River.
Duchesnay Falls sits behind Nipissing University and Canadore College on the Laurentian Escarpment.
The Summer Concert Series still books free live music at the Kiwanis Bandshell on the waterfront.
Lake Nipissing shoreline with walkway, marina, and the Kiwanis Bandshell. Locals treat it as the civic living room when the weather cooperates.
Waterfall and hardwood trails minutes from downtown, accessible from the university and college trailheads. Popular in spring runoff and fall colour season alike.
Municipal beach used for summer aqua fitness and easy lake days. One of the simpler ways to get onto Nipissing without a boat launch plan.
When North Bay 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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