Total Population
| year | population |
|---|---|
| 2003 | 22,213 |
| 2002 | 22,192 |
| 2001 | 22,476 |
| 2000 | 22,738 |
| 1999 | 22,917 |
| 1998 | 23,406 |
| 1997 | 24,018 |
| 1996 | 23,611 |
| 1995 | 23,012 |
| 1994 | 22,854 |
| 1993 | 23,110 |
Age Distribution
In 2003, the population of the community of Whitehorse averaged 22,213, close to the previous year's level of 22,192. The Whitehorse population increased in the early 1990s, reaching over 23,000 in the mid-1990s before declining a little in the past few years. Some of the population shifts seen in the 1990s were in reaction to the opening and closing of the lead-zinc mine at Faro, although other economic activity supports the majority of the population in the community.
Movement of people into and out of the area was quite high in the 1990s as the economy reacted to fluctuations in mining. Whitehorse has a stable population base, however. The 2001Census reported that approximately 79 percent of people living in the Whitehorse area had been living there in 1996. About 16 percent of those people living in Whitehorse in 2001 had moved from outside the Yukon, mainly from other provinces. The 2001 Census also reported that for the whole of the Yukon, about a third of the population had been born in the Yukon; this proportion will also be reflected in Whitehorse. In recent years, immigration to the Yukon and to Whitehorse from outside Canada has been quite low, although some of the movers from other provinces have been immigrants. The Whitehorse population now includes people from many countries.
First Nations people make up close to 16 percent of the total Whitehorse-area population. This compares with First Nations representation of close to 45 percent for the rest of the Yukon. The Kwanlin Dun First Nation and the Ta'an Kwach'an Council both have their homes in the Whitehorse area. Other First Nations people, mainly from elsewhere in the Yukon, make up a large part of the First Nations population in the community. Since Whitehorse makes up such a large share of the overall Yukon population and thus influences territorial numbers, it has a very similar age distribution to the Yukon as a whole. Slightly more of the population is in the 15-to-24 age group, reflecting the fact that Whitehorse is an education centre and a place where young people come looking for work. There is also a slight difference between Whitehorse and the rest of the Yukon in the proportion of older people in the population: 6 percent of the Whitehorse-area population is 65 years of age or older, compared to 8 percent of the population in the rest of the Yukon.
At the end of 2003, 51 percent of the Whitehorse population was female, a little higher than the 50 percent figure for the Yukon as a whole.
