Prince George, British Columbia
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British Columbia · Civic arena

Prince George

Prince George drinking water hardness is 141 mg/L on OpenStats, plus City Score rankings and local readings.

Civic arena · hometown HUD

Prince George

Census_agglomeration89k pop
44XP
#269

#269 of 343

44% City Score XP

RisingGroundwater
City Score XP

6/8 pillars on the board

44%#269

Decade trail

Prince George packs 6 of eight open-data pillars into its composite standing. Tap a rival below to see how the hometown stacks up head-to-head.

Prince George drinking water

Regional estimate from nearest municipal sample

Hardness, pH, and lead from municipal reports on the OpenStats water atlas. This page uses a regional estimate — open the water atlas for method notes.

Hardness
141 mg/L
hard
pH
7.9
Lead
0.5 μg/L

Full Prince George water quality report →City Score rankingsCompare cities · vs Victoria · vs North VancouverHardness guide

Watershed to tap · system map

How Prince George's water works

Source, treatment, and distribution for Prince George from municipal and provincial water records. Open the animated map for the full watershed-to-tap diagram — no nested topic navigation here.

Local numbers for Prince George

Permits, tax, internet, radon, hazards, drinking water, and sports rankings where a CHL hometown applies.

Sports

Junior hockey in Prince George

Full sports page →
Team
Prince George Cougars
League
WHL
Points %
58.8%

68 GP · 80 pts · Compare CHL cities

How Prince George scores

Rising+31

Prince George sits at City Score rank #269 with a standing of 44%, from 6 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 31 places versus 2022 (#300 → #269).

Latest owned placements: indoor radon rank #109 of 327 at 112 Bq/m³ survey mean. Full tables and method notes live on each study edition; atlas readings for the same slug open from the topic buttons.

Against the national corpus, Prince George carries a City Score standing of 44% (rank #269 of 343) with 6 of 8 pillars observed. That sits 4 points below the British Columbia peer average across 58 ranked cities. Within British Columbia, Prince George ranks #37 of 58 on City Score.

The strongest signal in the current chart is seismic hazard (standing 87%, rank #299 of 343, raw score 0.026). The weakest observed pillar is police-reported crime severity (standing 7%, rank #7 of 102, 193.8 CSI). Crime severity uses the Statistics Canada police-service CSI mapped to Prince George, British Columbia, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, municipal (table 35100063), not a regional proxy.

Drinking-water hardness on the water atlas reads 141 mg/L as CaCO₃ for Prince George. Compare that figure to the hardness pillar on the chart and to the national hardness guide on the hub.

#269
Arena rank (of 343)
44%
City Score
6
Pillars observed
Rising+31
vs 2022
#300 → #269

Arena loadout

Topic XP bars

Arena rank #269 of 343

City Score

6/8 pillars · main XP bar

44%#269
Drinking water

Pillar avg · hardness #212

46%
Building permits

No placement

—
Internet

Rank #272

21%
Radon

Rank #109

33%
Hazards

Rank #299

87%
Property tax

No placement

—

Prince George pillar standing

Eight equal-weight City Score pillars, 2025 panel year.

TaxPermitsNetRadonWaterHazardsGrowthCrime

Source: OpenStats composite / study editions

City Score standing trend

Standing percentage by panel year (higher is better).

Years: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

Source: OpenStats composite timeseries

Achievements

Rising +31Groundwater supply

Hometown notes

City profile

Older hometown notes stay on the desk archive (noindex) — this section shows recent highlights only.

Prince George in brief

Prince George starts at the rivers. The Fraser and Nechako meet on Lheidli T'enneh territory, and city pages spell out the meaning: where the two rivers flow together. Lheidli T'enneh Memorial Park, renamed from Fort George Park in 2015, sits on a former village site with a cemetery overlooking the Fraser. Exploration Place, the Little Prince mini-train, and the Kiwanis Bandshell Bowl share that ground with Heritage River Trail links toward Hudson's Bay Wetland. The pavilion marks a City and Lheidli partnership at the confluence that locals still point to on Canada Day walks.

Civic life still waves at Mr. PG while UNBC, Two Rivers Gallery, and Theatre Northwest fill the winter calendar. Canfor Leisure Pool and Music in the Park keep summer program language practical, with yoga and Zumba in the park sharing the same notice board as concert nights. Carrie Jane Gray Park modernization shows up in city notices the same week election packages hit the Citizen. College Heights reads as a named local district, not a generic suburb label handed down from somewhere larger.

Wildfire season turns Prince George into an evacuee information hub, with homepage alerts and Citizen coverage tracking who is arriving from southern fires. That northern-capital reflex sits beside confluence park days and Lheidli partnership language at City Hall. Locals orient by the two rivers first, then by whether the pool is open and which band is playing under the bandshell on a Thursday. Downtown planning files and election coverage keep the Citizen local government desk busy between park concerts.

Drawn from City of Prince George - Lheidli T'enneh Memorial Park, City of Prince George - Lheidli T'enneh First Nation, Prince George Citizen, City of Prince George.

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 Prince George

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 household-weighted maximum advertised download (Mbps) from ISED National Broadband Data hex ISP rows, with hex-to-city assignment by population-weighted gravity. The headline 2025 score is the dwelling-weighted mean of per-hex technology ceilings (fibre and cable at 1 Gbps, DSL lower). Household-weighted 50/10 availability (%) is stored on atlas rows as avail_5010_pct. Earlier panel years backcast along a national speed curve with city-specific fiber and availability paths.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#272
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 124

Sports · OpenStats

OpenStats CHL Points Percentage

OpenStats

Canadian Hockey League (OHL, WHL, QMJHL) member cities ranked by regular-season points percentage. One CHL team maps to each OpenStats hometown slug; standings snapshot is curated from public league tables.

Single edition · 2025

#25
Published · 2025 · of 45
Score 0.588

Only one published edition places Prince George in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.

Original source · Full edition

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). Crime severity uses StatCan police-service CSI only (Tables 35-10-0026-01 and 35-10-0063-01); cities without a police-service match take median standing on the safety pillar. Growth uses StatCan CSD estimates; construction uses verified municipal building-permit value per resident (population field on each city record, 2021 Census vintage); 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

#269
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.442

Safety · OpenStats

OpenStats Crime Severity Index

OpenStats

Communities ranked by Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index at police-service grain (Tables 35-10-0026-01 and 35-10-0063-01 for British Columbia). Rank 1 is highest CSI (worse). Cities without a police-service match are not listed; the safety pillar scores at median standing on City Score. Hometown pages name the police service and reference year.

CSI from Prince George, British Columbia, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, municipal (2025, Table 35-10-0063-01).

10 editions · 2016–2025

#7
Latest · 2025 · of 102
Score 193.75

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

#212
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 141

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

#109
Latest · 2025 · of 327
Score 112.3

Sports · OpenStats

OpenStats Local Sports Depth

OpenStats

Hometowns with a mapped junior hockey franchise ranked by local sports depth: league tier (CHL member leagues = 1.0, MHL = 0.65) multiplied by regular-season points percentage. Surfaces cities with both a franchise and a strong standings year; not a City Score pillar input.

Single edition · 2025

#25
Published · 2025 · of 49
Score 0.588

Only one published edition places Prince George in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.

Original source · Full edition

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

#140
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.01413636041819083

Hazards · OpenStats

OpenStats Seismic Hazard (PGA)

OpenStats

Communities ranked by NRCan peak ground acceleration (higher = stronger shaking hazard). Rank 1 is highest PGA. The seismic model is multi-year; values are carried across the City Score panel and flagged as static until NRCan publishes a new generation.

10 editions · 2016–2025

#299
Latest · 2025 · of 343
Score 0.026

Livability

Globe and Mail Most Livable Cities

The Globe and Mail

2023 data partnership with Environics Analytics ranking 439 Canadian communities on ten livability categories.

Single edition · 2023

#35
Published · 2023 · of 439

Only one published edition places Prince George in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.

Original source · Full edition

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

#138
Published · 2021 · of 415

Only one published edition places Prince George in this study so far. Open the edition for method notes and the full table.

Original source · Full edition

Worth knowing in Prince George

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

Places to see

Lheidli T'enneh Memorial Park

Premier riverside park on a former Lheidli village site, with pavilion, bandshell, and river views. Treat the cemetery with respect and stay on paved paths.

Two Rivers Gallery

Downtown arts stop that shows up regularly on the Citizen arts desk. A good counterweight to trail and river days.

Follow Prince George by email

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Related guides

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