Nova Scotia Radon Map: Every Home Health Canada Tested, and What It Read

515 homes across Nova Scotia were long-term tested for radon in the two federal surveys. Every one is a dot on this map, coloured by what it read, with the number of tested homes printed beside every district figure.

The Map

Every dot is one tested house. Zoom in for street names. Shaded districts had no home tested in either survey.

under 100100 to 147148 to 199200 and aboveno homes tested

515 measurements shown, and 6 more with no district recorded that cannot be placed. Dot positions inside a district are illustrative, not addresses. The survey records which district a home was in, never where it stood. Tap any dot for its reading, or any district for its count and median. Rural districts here cover thousands of square kilometres, so a dot in one says very little about any particular corner of it.

Built from Health Canada's published measurements under the Open Government Licence. We do not sell radon testing or mitigation.

What the Numbers Say

16%

of tested Nova Scotia homes at or above Canada's 200 Bq/m³ action level

median reading, Bq/m³

2,692

highest single reading, in B0E

Nova Scotia sits 13th of the 33 places mapped with a hundred or more tested homes, at 15.7% at or above the action level, between Halifax at 35.2% and Toronto and the GTA at 2.2%. All on the same two surveys and the same method. The spread between places is real, and the spread between houses on one street is bigger still.

The Number Changes Depending on Whose Limit You Use

Canada acts at 200 Bq/m³. The United States EPA acts at about 148. The World Health Organization sets a reference level of 100. Applied to the same 515 homes:

16%

at or above Canada's 200

22%

at or above the US EPA's 148

33%

at or above the WHO's 100

Same houses, same measurements. Why the three numbers differ, and which one to use.

By Postal District, with the Sample Sizes Shown

Read the count column before the median column. A district resting on four houses is a hint, not a verdict, and those rows are greyed. The land area column matters too: a district covering ten thousand square kilometres is an average across a region, not a neighbourhood.

District	Land km²	Homes tested	Median	Highest	At or over 200
B3T	215	10	366	750	6
B1V	12	1	290	290	1
B3R	15	3	238	727	2
B3P	12	7	214	819	4
B3Z	508	9	209	2117	5
B3N	8	13	153	348	4
B3M	12	10	126	1079	3
B3A	25	8	125	382	3
B1A	31	1	121	121	0
B0M	4,102	26	112	2448	9
B4V	638	9	109	965	2
B1L	183	3	101	195	0
B1S	15	7	101	1077	2
B0C	1,604	8	99	267	1
B2X	12	11	99	307	3
B2Z	118	3	99	142	0
B1H	54	2	87	106	0
B3H	7	11	84	518	3
B4B	163	3	83	111	0
B9A	78	5	83	155	0
B3L	4	11	82	373	3
B3V	124	7	70	413	2
B2N	57	4	68	644	1
B2G	996	5	65	149	0
B1R	25	2	63	95	0
B2R	54	2	63	74	0
B3G	33	3	60	77	0
B4A	20	3	59	124	0
B4N	321	9	59	188	0
B4P	221	14	53	206	1
B3S	4	4	52	142	0
B0J	5,166	20	51	185	0
B3K	7	9	50	264	2
B0W	4,329	18	49	449	1
B1M	49	2	48	77	0
B0V	292	4	47	113	0
B1P	43	8	43	173	0
B0K	3,452	21	41	172	0
B4H	733	8	41	157	0
B2V	11	9	40	94	0
B0T	3,964	11	39	232	1
B0N	4,851	18	38	216	1
B4R	8	3	36	85	0
B0H	2,614	14	35	224	1
B6L	878	5	35	89	0
B2W	23	16	34	231	1
B0P	1,790	30	32	1307	4
B0L	215	4	31	325	1
B0R	1,105	9	31	743	2
B0E	5,996	48	30	2692	10
B0S	2,830	20	29	394	1
B2S	459	6	29	87	0
B2T	545	4	29	349	1
B2Y	6	7	28	82	0
B4E	41	3	26	60	0
B2H	312	3	25	130	0
B4C	34	1	16	16	0

18 districts have ten or more tested homes, which is where these figures start to mean something. The districts with no measurement at all are B1B, B1C, B1E, B1G, B1J, B1K, B1N, B1T, B1W, B1X, B1Y, B2A, B2C, B2E, B2J, B3B, B3E, B3J, B4G, B5A.

What Actually Settles It

Nothing on this page describes your house. Radon varies enormously between homes on the same street, because it depends on how each building sits on and draws air from the ground beneath it. The highest reading here is 2,692 Bq/m³ and it sits in a district whose median is far below it. A long-term test in your own home is the only measurement that tells you anything about your home.

Also: every C-NRPP certified radon company here, the other city and province maps, and what radon actually is.

Sources and method. Radon measurements: Health Canada, Radon and Thoron Data From Canadian Homes (Halifax CMA) pooled with the Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes 2009-2011, both under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Boundaries: Statistics Canada 2021 cartographic forward sortation area file, same licence. Percentages are calculated from the individual measurements shown, not quoted from a summary. Land areas are from the Statistics Canada boundary file.