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For the most part, Canada is a fairly homogenous country, made up mainly of Caucasians with conservative values and European roots. There are only a handful of major cities in Canada, but it's within these lively cosmopolitan centres where the country's most vibrant expat communities live.

Toronto is the most diverse and exciting city in Canada in terms of ethnicity. It boasts more than 80 different ethnic communities from every continent, each with its own little corner of the city. Toronto is one of the main landing points for emigrants new to the country due to the amount of cultural support available.

While Canada is one of the easier countries to integrate into, it always helps to have a local community of people who share a cultural background with you. Canada has the world's second-largest Chinese community after America, with more than 1.3 million residents or four per cent of the Canadian population.

Toronto has the largest Chinese expat community at nearly half a million people, followed by Vancouver and Montreal. Asians in general make up 11 per cent of the Canadian population, most of whom live in the greater Toronto area, Vancouver, Montreal and Edmonton.

After the Chinese, Canada's next largest expat group comes from India. There are nearly one million Indian expats living in Canada, followed by Filipinos at nearly 500,000 people. There are also large numbers of Vietnamese, Korean, Lebanese, Pakistani and Iranian expats living in Canada's main cities.

Being a former commonwealth of Great Britain, Canada also attracts a large number of British, Australian and New Zealand expats. Most of these emigrants settle in Ontario and around Toronto where there are large British expat communities. Vancouver also has a decent British expat scene, particularly in its suburban districts on the outskirts of the downtown core.

If the prospect of emigrating to Canada feels daunting due to cultural differences, the best thing to do is start out in either Vancouver or Toronto. Both of these massive cities have millions of residents, good job potential and a variety of neighbourhoods to live in. It is easy to discover which neighbourhoods have large populations of a certain ethnic group simply by asking around and doing some exploration.

With two Chinatowns, a Koreatown, Little Italy, Greektown, Portugal Village, Little India and Little Jamaica it should not be too difficult to figure out where your scene lies in Toronto. The city's official motto is “Diversity is Strength” which should give you some idea of how important ethnic diversity is to Toronto.