text: how many people lived in canada in 1840 approximately?   there was no country called canada in 1840.  canada became a country in 1867, and of course not all the provinces that are part of canada today joined confederation at that time.  part of what is now canada was considered the province of canada, a colony of britain in 1840.  so you would need to specify what you mean.  do you mean the population of what constitutes canada today?  the population of what was known as upper canada at that time was about 455,000 and the population of what was known as lower canada was about 697,000.  i hope this helps.