Toronto officially has 18 more neighbourhoods.

The City released revised boundaries for Toronto’s social planning neighbourhoods on Wednesday, increasing the number of neighbourhoods from 140 to 158. But it wasn’t simply a matter of adding in 18 new neighbourhoods. To make the change, 16 of the city’s existing neighbourhoods were split into 34 new ones, with the original 16 names being retired.

This increase, the City says, was made to balance out the population growth that the city has seen since the late 1990s when the original social planning neighbourhoods were laid out.

“The City is committed to making sure that our work to support our growing neighbourhoods and communities is driven by sound data and evidence,” said Mayor John Tory. “The changes to the social planning neighbourhoods will help the City and our partners enhance equity, reduce poverty and ensure that services and supports are delivered where they’re needed most.”

Although the names of many of the new social planning neighbourhoods are already familiar to Toronto residents and have been used to describe certain areas for quite some time, they weren’t officially used by the City. The chosen names, the City says, were selected after taking historical information, prominent features, landmarks, institutions, or colloquial names into account and then shortened into “a reasonable compound name that can be easily referenced.”

Some notable changes include the division of the previous “Waterfront Communities” neighbourhood into “St Lawrence-East Bayfront-The Islands” and “Harbourfront-City Place,” as well as the splitting of the former “Niagara” neighbourhood into Fort York-Liberty Village” and “West Queen West.”

Social planning neighbourhoods are used by both the City and its partners to plan community services and supports. They’re different than Toronto’s historical neighbourhoods, established in 1996, of which there are 140.

“The City is the government closest to residents, so it is our responsibility to put the right tools in place to ensure the safety, well-being and quality of life in their communities,” said Deputy Mayor Michael Thompson. “Our updated and expanded social planning neighbourhood network allows us, and service planners, to identify more accurately local needs and determine how to meet them equitably and more effectively.”

The complete list of new social planning neighbourhoods is as follows:

• St Lawrence-East Bayfront-The Islands
• Harbourfront-City Place
• Wellington Place
• Yonge-Bay Corridor
• Downtown Yonge East
• West Queen West
• Fort York-Liberty Village
• Bay-Cloverhill
• Church-Wellesley
• Dovercourt Village
• Junction-Wallace Emerson
• South Eglinton-Davisville
• North Toronto
• Humber Bay Shores
• Mimico-Queensway
• Parkwoods-O’Connor Hills
• Etobicoke City Centre
• Downsview
• Avondale
• Islington
• Fenside-Parkwoods
• Oakdale-Beverley Heights
• Yonge-Doris
• East Willowdale
• Bendale South
• Bendale-Glen Andrew
• L’Amoreaux West
• Golfdale-Cedarbrae-Woburn
• Woburn North
• East L’Amoreaux
• West Rouge
• Morningside Heights
• Malvern East
• Malvern West