There were 139 officially recognized Indian Residential Schools in Canada under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), but the true number of residential schools and related institutions is higher and still being clarified.

Quick Scoop: Core Numbers

  • The IRSSA formally identified 139 residential schools across Canada.
  • These schools operated in every province and territory except Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland.
  • Many other institutions (hostels, day schools, federally unrecognized schools) also functioned like residential schools but are not all included in that 139 figure.

Why the Number Isn’t Simple

  • The 139 number comes from a legal agreement (IRSSA), not a complete historical census.
  • Some schools that operated without federal funding, or under different arrangements, were left out of that list.
  • New recognitions still happen: for example, Kivalliq Hall in Rankin Inlet was only added as an IRSSA-recognized school in 2019, even though it closed in 1997.

In other words: 139 is the official baseline, but historians, communities, and survivors emphasize that the real network of institutions that tore children from their families was larger and more complex.

How Many at the System’s Peak?

  • Around 1931 , the system was at its largest, with about 80 residential schools operating at the same time.
  • Over more than 160 years, an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and MĂ©tis children attended these schools.

Snapshot Table: Residential School System

[5][1] [7][3] [3][5][7] [5][7] [7][5]
Measure Key figure
Official schools in IRSSA 139 residential schools recognized in the settlement agreement
Peak number operating at once About 80 schools in the early 1930s
Children who attended Over 150,000 Indigenous children across Canada
Where they operated All provinces and territories except PEI, New Brunswick, Newfoundland
Period of operation From the 19th century into the 1990s; the last schools closed in the mid‑1990s

A Serious Topic, Not Just a Number

Although your question is about “how many residential schools were there,” the number sits inside a larger story of forced assimilation and abuse.

  • The system was designed to erase Indigenous languages, cultures, and identities , often through violence and neglect.
  • Survivors’ testimonies describe physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as deep intergenerational trauma that communities are still working through today.

An example to keep in mind: by 1900 there were 22 industrial schools and 39 residential schools, showing how early and deliberately structured this system was.

Ongoing Discussion and “Latest News”

Public conversation about residential schools remains very active in Canada, especially after recent and ongoing discoveries of unmarked burials at former school sites.

  • Ground-penetrating radar work has identified potential grave sites at several former schools, leading to renewed calls for records, accountability, and proper commemoration.
  • The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and provincial governments (like Ontario) emphasize that many records are incomplete, meaning both the number of schools and the number of children who died may still rise as research continues.

Bottom Line + Context

  • If you need a single figure, historians and legal documents usually cite 139 recognized residential schools in Canada.
  • If you are asking in a moral or historical sense—“how many places did this happen?”—the honest answer is: more than 139 , and we still do not have a final, complete count.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.