Maria-Chapdelaine Regional County Municipality

Maria-Chapdelaine is a regional county municipality in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada. Its seat is in Dolbeau-Mistassini.

Maria-Chapdelaine
Regional county municipality
Coordinates: 48°59′N 72°17′W[1]
Country	Canada
Province	Quebec
Region	Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean
Effective	January 1, 1983
County seat	Dolbeau-Mistassini
Government [2]
• Type	Prefecture
• Prefect	Luc Simard
Area [2][3]
• Total	38,056.70 km2 (14,693.77 sq mi)
• Land	36,768.21 km2 (14,196.29 sq mi)
Population  (2021)[4]
• Total	24,149
• Density	0.7/km2 (2/sq mi)
• Change (2016-2021)	2.6
• Dwellings	12,185
Time zone	UTC−5 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
Area codes	418 and 581
Website	www.mrcdemaria-chapdelaine.ca
[5]

It runs from Lac Saint-Jean in the south to the deep interior of northern Quebec in the north.

Subdivisions

There are 15 subdivisions within the RCM:^[2]

Cities & Towns (2) Dolbeau-Mistassini Normandin

Municipalities (8) Albanel Girardville Notre-Dame-de-Lorette Péribonka Saint-Edmond-les-Plaines Saint-Eugène-d'Argentenay Saint-Stanislas Saint-Thomas-Didyme

Parishes (1) Saint-Augustin

Villages (1) Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc

Unorganized Territory (3) Passes-Dangereuses Rivière-Mistassini Sainte-Élisabeth-de-Proulx

Transportation

Access Routes

Highways and numbered routes that run through the municipality, including external routes that start or finish at the county border:^[6]

Autoroutes None

Principal Highways R-169

Secondary Highways R-373

External Routes None

Demographics

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 35,501.49 km² (13,707.20 sq mi), it had a population density of 0.7/km² (1.8/sq mi) in 2021.^[7]

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%

(Percentages may total more than 100% due to rounding and multiple responses).

See also

• List of regional county municipalities and equivalent territories in Quebec