Canadians are still a few months away from filling out their census, but that has not stopped the Rural Municipality of Hanover from making an educated guess at its total population.

The municipality has taken its number of dwelling units and multiplied that by the average number of people per household, based on the last census. That results in a population of 19,401 residents for Hanover. That would be an increase of 3,668 residents from the 2016 census.

If you break those numbers down further, the Local Urban District (LUD) of Mitchell would be the heaviest populated at 3,217 residents, followed by the LUD of Blumenort at 2,174 residents, LUD of Grunthal at 2,114 residents, community of Kleefeld at 1,841 residents and the community of New Bothwell at 868 residents. There would be 9,188 residents living in the rural area of Hanover.

After the 2016 census, Hanover was the most populated municipality in Manitoba and trailed Steinbach's population by only 96 people.

Hanover Reeve Stan Toews says it is extremely important for residents to fill out the census. He notes a lot of grant money is based on population size.

"So, if people don't fill this out, of course they are not counted and that means our grant is less," he explains. "And so therefore we have to raise more money to make up for that."

Toews says from what he recalls, back in 2016 it was said that for every resident that does not get counted in the census, it works out to approximately $1,200 in lost funding over a five year period.