Photo: Leoboudv · CC BY-SA 3.0Fewer visits per person served than 76% of British Columbia’s town libraries: Surrey Public Library counts 3.4
The library figures on this page are Surrey’s: Surrey Public Library serves all 703,615 people of the city, South Surrey among them. These 2025 figures are what the library reported to British Columbia’s public library statistics.
C+Civic life#208 of 254 in British ColumbiaBehind South Surrey’s civic life grade
Civic life in South Surrey grades C+: #208 of the 254 towns graded in British Columbia. South Surrey 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.
697 registered charities give a Surrey mailing address
There is no count for South Surrey on its own: the charities are those of all of Surrey. Per 1,000 residents that makes 1; the median is 1.2 for British Columbia towns and 1.4 for Canada’s. The CRA files each charity under its mailing address, so a service town collects its region’s charities and a suburb or rural municipality few.
36.9%
Volunteering here is a provincial number: 36.9% of people across British Columbia in 2023, likely 35.2% to 38.7%, set in a ten-province range of 25.2% to 40.3%.
Statistics Canada, table 45-10-0039.
Behind most of British Columbia’s town libraries on all 2 measures
Each figure is per person served, set against 32 town libraries in British Columbia’s statistics for 2025.
Town libraries only; regional systems left out.
About 6,587 visits a day
The year 2025 at Surrey Public Library, in the library’s own counts.
The nearest library is 2.4 km from South Surrey
In order of distance from the centre of South Surrey, as the crow flies.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Library locations. Only public libraries are mapped: OpenStreetMap and Statistics Canada’s 2020 list, with school and university libraries removed.
Questions about the library and civic life in South Surrey
Does South Surrey have a public library?
Not within South Surrey itself: the closest is SPL: Semiahmoo Branch, in Semiahmoo Town Centre.
How busy is Surrey Public Library?
It counted 2,404,116 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).