The Tally
5,707businesses, counted one at a time.
That is every business I could find in the 83 Kootenay towns, counted 15 SEP 2026. I didn't estimate or guess any of it. Every entry is a front door you can walk up to, or a phone that rings.
Official statistics skip most small towns and run more than a year behind. As far as I can find, 58 of these 83 towns never had their businesses counted in public before. Pick your town below and every number on the page changes to match it. I show the math too.
Did you know
A few things the count turned up
I found each of these just by counting. The rest of the page shows how, town by town.
198
businesses on Columbia Ave in Castlegar. The busiest street on the List.
294
businesses put the word Kootenay right in their name.
58
towns have their businesses counted in public for the first time, right here.
1,849
businesses have no website I could find. The List is where you find them.
Now showing the whole region. It has 5,707 businesses across 83 towns.
Start here: choose your town
Pick a town and every number on this page changes to match it. Tap the same town again to go back to the whole region.
The whole region, counted
Here are four numbers about the Kootenays as a whole. Pick a town above and all four change to match it.
Businesses listed
5,707
on the List across all 83 towns
For its size
–
Pick a town above to see how many businesses it has for every 1,000 people.
Have their own website
68%
3,858 of 5,707 have a site of their own. The rest you can find here.
at least this many, since I can only count sites I've found
Towns counted
83
every town with at least one business on the List, big or small
Every town, ranked
Every town in the region, in one list. Tap any town to see its numbers.
Bigger towns have more businesses. No surprise there. The surprise is that for most of these places, this is the first business count anyone has published.
What the region is made of
The kinds of business the Kootenays actually has, biggest group first. A business that fits two groups is counted in both, so these can add up to more than the total above.
What I could not find
Some bigger towns have no listing yet for these everyday businesses. I searched websites, directories and public records and came up empty. That only means they're missing from the List. The town may well have one. Know it? Add a business to the List. If you've been thinking of starting a business, this is a head start on your homework. The next section shows trades a town has only a few of.
Where the region is stretched thin
The last section showed trades a town has none of. This one shows trades a town has only a few of. For the number of people who live there, the region as a whole has far more. If you want to start a business, these towns already have the customers. I only count what's on the List, so thin means thin on the List.
A full bar would match the whole region's rate for that trade. Tap a row to see that town's numbers.
And across the region, 116 everyday trades in 37 towns have just one business on the List. When that one owner retires, people there have to drive to the next town.
Who has a website
1,849 of the 5,707 businesses in the region have no website I could find. They're on the List anyway, and mostly nowhere else online. Below is the share with a website in each town. Read every share as “at least”, because I can only count the sites I've found. If you run a business here, this is a head start. In most of these towns, the first shop in a trade with a real website gets found first in search.
I leave out towns with fewer than 15 listings. With only a handful of businesses, one website swings the share too far to mean much.
Counted straight from the List, 15 SEP 2026. Population figures come from the Statistics Canada 2021 Census. I didn't estimate anything on this page.
The small town that wins
In Kaslo, one business for every 8 people.
It has 131 businesses and 1,049 residents, going by the 2021 census. No other Kootenay town of 250 people or more has more businesses per person. All 131 are on the List. A couple of tiny places do beat it. But with a few dozen people each, they are too small to rank fairly. You'll meet one of them further down the page.
Your town against the next one
Pick two towns and see what each one has, side by side. A zero means nothing of that kind is on the List there yet. If you're thinking of opening one, that's worth a long look.
Every kind of business below has at least one listing in both towns. The numbers show which town has more of each.
Odds and ends
Small things the count turned up that did not fit anywhere else.
The busiest streets on the List
The streets with the most businesses on them, anywhere in the Kootenays.
Columbia Ave, Castlegar198
Baker St, Nelson126
Cranbrook St N, Cranbrook105
Canyon St, Creston70
2nd Ave, Fernie66
294 businesses have “Kootenay” right in their name.
The tiniest places throw the rates off, in the best way. Ainsworth Hot Springs has 13 businesses and 20 residents. It's too small to rank fairly, but too good to leave out.
How to check these numbers
You shouldn't have to take my word for any of this. Here is what the numbers are, and what they can't tell you.
- Every number is a real count. I count every number straight from the List, as of 15 SEP 2026. I don't project anything or borrow numbers from anywhere else.
- Rates per person use the 2021 census. Each rate uses that town's own population from Statistics Canada. The census is a few years old. If a place has no population figure of its own, I show no rate at all. I never borrow a figure from somewhere else.
- Website numbers mean “at least”. I can only count the websites I've found. So the real share is a little higher than the one shown.
- This is a count of the List, not official statistics. Statistics Canada counts tax accounts. The List counts front doors you can walk up to, or phone.
- “Added” and “removed” are about the List. They never mean a business opened or closed. I write down the reason for every change.