| Maria-Chapdelaine | |
| Settlement Type: | Regional county municipality |
| Coordinates: | 48.9833°N -89°W |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Type1: | Province |
| Subdivision Type2: | Region |
| Subdivision Name2: | Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean |
| Established Title: | Effective |
| Established Date: | January 1, 1983 |
| Seat Type: | County seat |
| Seat: | Dolbeau-Mistassini |
| Government Footnotes: | [1] |
| Government Type: | Prefecture |
| Leader Title: | Prefect |
| Leader Name: | Luc Simard |
| Area Footnotes: | [2] |
| Area Total Km2: | 38056.70 |
| Area Land Km2: | 36768.21 |
| Population Footnotes: | [3] |
| Population Total: | 24,149 |
| Population As Of: | 2021 |
| Population Density Km2: | 0.7 |
| Population Blank1 Title: | Change (2016-2021) |
| Population Blank1: | 2.6 |
| Population Blank2 Title: | Dwellings |
| Population Blank2: | 12,185 |
| Timezone: | EST |
| Utc Offset: | −5 |
| Timezone Dst: | EDT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | −4 |
| Postal Code Type: | Postal code(s) |
| Area Code: | 418 and 581 |
Maria-Chapdelaine is a regional county municipality in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada. Its seat is in Dolbeau-Mistassini.
It runs from Lac Saint-Jean in the south to the deep interior of northern Quebec in the north.
There are 15 subdivisions within the RCM:[1]
Highways and numbered routes that run through the municipality, including external routes that start or finish at the county border:[4]
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the RCM of Maria-Chapdelaine had a population of 24,149 living in 10,967 of its 12,185 total private dwellings, a change of -2.6% from its 2016 population of 24,793. With a land area of 35501.49km2, it had a population density of in 2021.[5]
In 2021, the median age was 50.0, as opposed to 41.6 for all of Canada. French was the mother tongue of 99.0% of residents in 2021. The next most common mother tongues were the related languages of Atikamekw and Innu at 0.3% total, followed by English and Spanish at 0.3% each. 0.3% reported both English and French as their first language. Additionally there were 0.1% who reported both French and a non-official language as their mother tongue.
As of 2021, Indigenous peoples comprised 6.8% of the population, and visible minorities contributed 1.1%. The largest visible minority groups in the RCM of Maria-Chapdelaine are Black (0.5%), Arab (0.2%), and Latin American (0.2%).
In 2021, 79.1% of the population identified as Catholic, while 13.6% said they had no religious affiliation. Jehovah's Witnesses were the largest religious minority, making up 0.6% of the population. Muslims were the largest non-Christian religious minority, making up just over 0.1% of the population.
Counting both single and multiple responses, the most commonly identified ethnocultural ancestries were:
| Ethnic origin | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|
| Canadian | 42.1% | |
| French | 21.0% | |
| Québécois | 15.4% | |
| French Canadian | 9.4% | |
| First Nations | 4.2% | |
| Métis | 2.7% | |
| Irish | 1.6% | |
| Innu | 1.2% | |
| Acadian | 1.0% |