VANCOUVER – Tim Hortons is by far the most popular place to grab a cup of coffee in Canada, except in Vancouver, where Starbucks reigns supreme.
Using data scraped from the two chains’ websites, William Wolfe-Wylie, home page editor at canada.com, has calculated how many Tim Hortons and Starbucks locations there are in every neighbourhood across Canada.
For the vast majority of places, Tim Hortons is the clear winner – not surprising given there are nearly 3,500 Tim Hortons locations in Canada compared to just 1,200 Starbucks.
But there is a clear urban-rural split over whether Canadians reach for Timbits or biscotti.
All of Canada’s major cities have a few neighbourhoods with more Starbucks than Tim Hortons.
But even in Toronto or Montreal, once you get outside of the urban core, Tim Hortons remains the clear favourite.
The one notable exception: Metro Vancouver.
Almost all neighbourhoods in the City of Vancouver have more Starbucks than Tim Hortons. And most neighbourhoods in Richmond, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Delta and Port Moody are Starbucks territory, too.
Burnaby is about evenly split between the two chains.
It’s not until you get out to the Fraser Valley – to places like Surrey, Langley and Abbotsford – that you are once again in clear Tim Hortons territory.
The maps below show which neighbourhoods have more Tim Hortons or Starbucks in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Timmy’s territory is shown in red, Starbucks in green. Neighbourhoods where there’s a tie are shown in white.
Areas on the map are divided into “Forward Sortation Areas,” the first three digits of a postal code, which are copyrighted by Canada Post and used with permission.
For more details on this topic, and maps of Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, check out Wolfe-Wylie’s original post on canada.com.
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