Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
Wikimedia Commons via Wikipedia

Northwest Territories · Civic arena

Yellowknife

Yellowknife drinking water hardness is 174 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.

Civic arena · hometown HUD

Yellowknife

Census_agglomeration20k pop
59XP
#62

#62 of 343

59% City Score XP

RisingDirectSurface
City Score XP

7/8 pillars on the board

59%#62

Decade trail

Yellowknife 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.

Yellowknife drinking water

Direct municipal reading

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

Hardness
174 mg/L
hard
pH
7.7
Lead
0.6 μg/L

Full Yellowknife water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Haldimand County · vs Sept-ÎlesHardness guide

Watershed to tap · system map

How Yellowknife's water works

Open full map

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

Local numbers for Yellowknife

Drinking water first, then permits, tax, internet, radon, and hazards for Yellowknife.

How Yellowknife scores

Rising+103

Yellowknife sits at City Score rank #62 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. Rising 103 places versus 2022 (#165 → #62).

Latest owned placements: building permit value rank #83 of 343 (2025); indoor radon rank #222 of 343 at 124 Bq/m³ survey mean; residential mill rate rank #316 of 343 (7.28 mill rate). Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.

#62
Arena rank (of 343)
59%
City Score
7
Pillars observed
Rising+103
vs 2022
#165 → #62

Arena loadout

Topic XP bars

Arena rank #62 of 343

City Score

7/8 pillars · main XP bar

59%#62
Drinking water

Rank #175

51%
Building permits

Rank #83

76%
Internet

Rank #118

66%
Radon

Rank #222

65%
Hazards

No placement

Property tax

Rank #316

92%

Achievements

Rising +103Direct municipal readingSurface water supply

Hometown notes

Archive

Earlier years: 2026 · 2025 · 2024 · 2023

Yellowknife in brief

Yellowknife is a capital on Great Slave Lake, and the shoreline still orders the story. Old Town holds the heritage waterfront, from Wildcat Café to the old floatplane base, while Ragged Ass Road, Peace River Flats, and Back Bay keep names that sound like nowhere else in Canada. Newer civic life gathers at Somba K'e Civic Plaza and Somba K'e Park, where Sounds of Summer puts free Friday music on the lawn and Fireweed Studio keeps a seasonal craft cabin by City Hall. Across town, Kam Lake is the employment and warehouse belt the City is planning to expand. Parks here often sit on Canadian Shield granite, so a playground visit can turn into a rock scramble without leaving city limits.

Winter is not a side note. The City leans on clear nights and aurora season, mid-November through early April, and dots the streets with Northern Lighthouses that tip you when the lights are active. Summers swing the other way, with midnight sun that refuses to log off and festivals such as Folk on the Rocks in the local cultural vocabulary. Cabin Radio still sends people to Old Town Ramble and Ride when the floatplane shore wants a parade of bikes and boots. The Bristol Freighter near Yellowknife Airport stays the bush-pilot welcome marker, and Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre plus Yellowknives Dene First Nation links keep the deeper northern history in reach.

OpenStats has no City Score placement for Yellowknife in the current datapack. The hometown read is northern on purpose: lake ice and aurora alerts, Old Town floatplanes, Somba K'e concerts, and granite under the swing sets.

Drawn from City of Yellowknife, City of Yellowknife culture and heritage, City of Yellowknife weather and aurora, City of Yellowknife trails and parks, Cabin Radio.

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 Yellowknife

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

#118
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 511.1

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

#83
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 700141494

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

#62
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.587

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

#1
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 485.88

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

#175
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 174

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

#222
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 124

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

#53
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.025252298721686477

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

#316
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 7.276082371357822

Worth knowing in Yellowknife

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

  • City aurora pages point to Northern Lighthouses around town that signal when active northern lights are in the evening forecast.

    City of Yellowknife

  • Somba K'e Civic Plaza hosts the Sounds of Summer free Friday concert series through late August.

    City of Yellowknife

  • Many playgrounds and parks are built into Canadian Shield granite, so rock climbing sits beside the swing sets.

    City of Yellowknife

  • The Bristol Freighter near Yellowknife Airport is listed as the city's Welcome Monument for bush pilots.

    City of Yellowknife

Places to see

Old Town

The heritage waterfront on Yellowknife Bay, home to Wildcat Café and the old floatplane shore. Old Town Ramble and Ride still pulls the neighbourhood into the annual calendar.

Somba K'e Civic Plaza

Civic lawn near City Hall for summer concerts and Fireweed Studio season. Bring a chair on Fridays when Sounds of Summer is on.

Follow Yellowknife by email

When Yellowknife 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.

No spam. Unsubscribe with one reply.

Related guides