Photo: Dennis Sylvester Hurd · CC0Fewer visits per person served than 82% of British Columbia’s town libraries: New Westminster Public Library counts 3.1
New Westminster Public Library has 3 branches for the 92,124 people it serves. These are 2025 figures, the library’s own yearly return to British Columbia’s statistics.
B−Civic life#199 of 254 in British ColumbiaNew Westminster’s civic life grade, input by input
New Westminster gets a B− for civic life, #199 of 254 towns graded in British Columbia. New Westminster has every input a civic life grade uses: library visits per resident, charities per 1,000 residents and the province’s volunteering rate.
Informal groups and mutual aid go uncounted.
Sources: provincial statistics, the CRA, Statistics Canada.
New Westminster mailing addresses hold 155 registered charities
That is 1.7 per 1,000 residents, against 1.2 in the typical British Columbia town and 1.4 across Canada. Counting by mailing address favors a service town, where the surrounding area’s charities get their mail, over the suburbs and countryside around it.
36.9%
For 2023, the provincial survey estimates that 36.9% of people in British Columbia volunteered formally (likely 35.2% to 38.7%); among the ten provinces the rate goes from 25.2% to 40.3%.
Statistics Canada, table 45-10-0039.
Behind most of British Columbia’s town libraries on all 2 measures
Per person served, against the 32 town libraries in British Columbia’s 2025 statistics.
Town libraries only; regional systems left out.
Some 783 visits on an average day
Everything counted at New Westminster Public Library in 2025: visits, loans and cards.
New Westminster’s 3 public libraries
Sorted by straight-line distance from the centre of New Westminster.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Library locations. Public library locations are taken from OpenStreetMap and a 2020 Statistics Canada inventory, merged where both list one place.
Questions about the library and civic life in New Westminster
Does New Westminster have a public library?
Yes, 3: Library and Learning Centre, NWPL: New Westminster Public Library and NWPL: Queensborough Library.
How busy is New Westminster Public Library?
It counted 285,884 in-person visits in 2025.
Library statistics: BC Public Libraries Statistics, 2025. Library locations: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) and Statistics Canada, Open Database of Cultural and Art Facilities (2020). Charities: Canada Revenue Agency, List of charities (2024), charitable organizations only.
Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).