The province reports a rate three-times higher than national average
Manitoba has the highest ratio of Indigenous people out of all provinces in Canada, according to the 2021 census.
Indigenous people made up about 18 per cent of Manitobans. That figure was more than triple their share of Canada's population.
About 237,000 of just over 1.3 million people in the province self-identified as Indigenous in 2021. Of the 237,000, about 38 per cent lived in Winnipeg.
The capital city had the largest Indigenous population of any city in Canada. Nearly 91,000 people said they were Indigenous, making up 12.4 per cent of the city's population.
Between 2016 and 2021, the city saw a growth of over 6,500 Indigenous people. That's an increase of about eight per cent.
Census data shows that the share of Manitobans who identify as Indigenous has remained steady since 2016, even as the population of Manitoba grew by over 63,000.
That means more people in Manitoba are self identifying as Indigenous.
In 2021, about 13,780 more Manitobans declared themselves of Indigenous identity. They made up about a six per cent growth in the Indigenous population since 2016.
In both 2016 and 2021 census years, the province's Indigenous population was mostly First Nations and Métis people. They accounted for about 98 per cent of Indigenous identities.
The 134,890 First Nations people made up 10 per cent of Manitobans, while the 96,725 Métis made up seven per cent; leaving one percent as self-identified Inuit people.
Manitoba’s population was almost evenly split between men and women for both the 2016 and 2021 census years. But among the Indigenous population, there was slightly more women.
With the census data averaged across both years, about 51.7 per cent of First Nations people were female. That figure is nearly one and a half percentage points higher than the average for Manitoba, which was 50.3 per cent who identified as women.
In 2021, that came out to about 4,400 more First Nations women living in Manitoba than First Nations men. They represented nearly three per cent of the entire First Nation population, which was 134,890.
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