Dictionary, Census of Population, 2021
Dissemination Geography Unique Identifier (DGUID)

Definition

The Dissemination Geography Unique Identifier (DGUID) code is assigned to all geographic areas. Introduced for the 2016 Census products, the DGUID is an alphanumeric code varying from 10 to 21 characters in length. The first nine characters are fixed in composition and length. These characters indicate the vintage, type and schema of geographic boundaries. The geographic unique identifier that follows varies from 1 to 12 characters in length. The four elements composing the DGUID are as follows:

DGUID = Vintage ‖ Type ‖ Schema ‖ Geographic Unique Identifier.

Vintage is a four digit code (e.g., 2021) indicating the reference year of the geospatial data.

Type is a one character code (e.g., A) indicating the type of geographic areas. At this time there are five geographic area types:

A Administrative areas
S Statistical areas
C Combined areas
B Blended areas
Z Other

Schema is a four digit sequential number (e.g., 0005) assigned to each unique geographic area defined by type.

Geographic Unique Identifier is a variable length alpha‑numeric code (e.g., 3520005) assigned to each individual geographic area. For more detail see the Geographic Code definition. The Geographic Unique Identifiers range from 1 to 12 characters in length.

Reported in

2021

Remarks

For more information on the DGUID definition and structure, please refer to the Dissemination Geography Unique Identifier, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 92F0138M‑2019001.

For further details, refer to the description of the geographic code in the definitions of Census Agricultural Region (CAR); Census Consolidated Subdivision (CCS); Census Division (CD); Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) and Census Agglomeration (CA); Census Subdivision (CSD); Census Tract (CT); Designated Place (DPL); Dissemination Area (DA); Dissemination Block (DB); Economic Region (ER); Federal Electoral District (FED); Geographic Code; Population Centre (POPCTR); Province or Territory and Standard Geographical Classification (SGC).

Changes prior to the current census

Not applicable