Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
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Ontario · Civic arena

Sault Ste. Marie

Sault Ste. Marie drinking water hardness is 207 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.

Civic arena · hometown HUD

Sault Ste. Marie

Census_agglomeration77k pop
50XP
#188

#188 of 343

50% City Score XP

DroppingDirect
City Score XP

7/8 pillars on the board

50%#188

Decade trail

Sault Ste. Marie 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.

Sault Ste. Marie drinking water

Direct municipal reading

Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas.

Hardness
207 mg/L
very hard
pH
7
Lead
0.7 μg/L

Full Sault Ste. Marie water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Lincoln · vs GrimsbyHardness guide

Watershed to tap · system map

How Sault Ste. Marie's water works

Open full map

Source, treatment, and distribution for Sault Ste. Marie from municipal and provincial water records. Hardness and grade are published readings.

Local numbers for Sault Ste. Marie

Drinking water first, then permits, tax, internet, radon, and hazards for Sault Ste. Marie.

How Sault Ste. Marie scores

Dropping52

Sault Ste. Marie sits at City Score rank #188 with a standing of 50%, 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 52 places versus 2022 (#136 → #188).

Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #248 of 343 (2025); indoor radon rank #168 of 343 at 157 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #278 of 343 (7.99 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.

#188
Arena rank (of 343)
50%
City Score
7
Pillars observed
Dropping52
vs 2022
#136 → #188

Arena loadout

Topic XP bars

Arena rank #188 of 343

City Score

7/8 pillars · main XP bar

50%#188
Drinking water

Rank #115

34%
Building permits

Rank #248

28%
Internet

Rank #165

52%
Radon

Rank #168

49%
Hazards

No placement

Property tax

Rank #278

81%

Achievements

Dropping -52Direct municipal reading

Hometown notes

Archive

Earlier years: 2026 · 2025 · 2024 · 2023

Sault Ste. Marie in brief

Sault Ste. Marie is the Soo: a Northern Ontario border city where Lake Superior and Lake Huron geography meet the International Bridge to Michigan. The city homepage greets people with Welcome, Biindigen, and Bienvenue, and tourism pages sell an adventure-town calendar of trails, snow, and Great Lakes water. Downtown, the Sault Downtown Plaza on Bay Street hosts concerts, markets beside Soo MRKT, seasonal ice, and the Rotary Interactive Fountain. Roberta Bondar Park puts a tent pavilion right on the St. Marys River for bigger outdoor nights. Hot August Nights and Margaritaville bookings keep the plaza lit after supper.

Bellevue Park is the main passive park, with splash pad, greenhouse, sensory playground, and links into the John Rowswell Hub Trail. Visitors still book the Agawa Canyon Tour Train for a full-day run into the bush, and the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre keeps the Ontario Provincial Air Service hangar story in town. The Sault Star sports desk talks Soo Greyhounds the way other cities talk their junior clubs, and wildfire season often leads the regional news stack. Sault Area Hospital and player billet searches share the same local-desk mix of hard news and community asks.

Municipal life stays practical. East Street reconstruction updates sit on the homepage beside Summer Concert Series promos and election worker calls. Housing CIP notices and downtown development committee dates keep planning talk close to Bay Street. On OpenStats City Score for 2026, Sault Ste. Marie sits at rank 114 of 125. Locals still start the introduction with the Soo, the riverfront, and the bridge before they mention the train or the bushplanes.

Drawn from City of Sault Ste. Marie, Sault Downtown Plaza, Bellevue Park, Roberta Bondar Park, Tourism Sault Ste. Marie, Sault Star.

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 Sault Ste. Marie

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 Broadband Download Speeds

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

#165
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 437.5

Construction · OpenStats

OpenStats Building Permit Value

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

#248
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 301150668

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). 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

#188
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.495

Safety · OpenStats

OpenStats Crime Severity Index

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

#316
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 57.17

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

#115
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 207

Health · OpenStats

OpenStats Highest Indoor Radon

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

#168
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 157

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

#269
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.0025068227565171216

Property tax · OpenStats

OpenStats Residential Mill Rates

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

#278
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 7.992323529487767

Worth knowing in Sault Ste. Marie

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

  • Sault Downtown Plaza at 526 Bay Street sits beside Soo MRKT and runs seasonal outdoor skating.

    Sault Downtown Plaza

  • Bellevue Park spans about 17 hectares with a splash pad, greenhouse, and 2.4 kilometres of walkway.

    Bellevue Park

  • Roberta Bondar Park's Tent Pavilion sits on the St. Marys River and can seat large outdoor events under cover.

    Roberta Bondar Park

Places to see

Sault Downtown Plaza

Bay Street gathering place with Village Media Stage, Rotary Interactive Fountain, and winter ice. Soo MRKT sets up beside it on market days.

Agawa Canyon Tour Train

Full-day scenic rail trip leaving from Huron Street into Northern Ontario forests and canyon stops. Tourism pages treat it as the classic first-visit outing.

Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre

Historic hangar attraction focused on bushplanes and forest-fire aviation. It pairs with the outdoor calendar that sells the Soo as a trail and snow town.

Bellevue Park

Main passive park with playgrounds, greenhouse, and Hub Trail connections. Summer survey work shows how closely residents watch its upkeep.

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