A census consolidated subdivision (CCS) is a group of adjacent census subdivisions. Generally, the smaller, more densely-populated census subdivisions (towns, villages, etc.) are combined with the surrounding, larger, more rural census subdivision, in order to create a geographic level between the census subdivision and the census division.

Census consolidated subdivisions are defined within census divisions (CDs) according to the following criteria:

1. A census subdivision (CSD) with a land area greater than 25 square kilometres can form a CCS of its own. Census subdivisions having a land area smaller than 25 square kilometres are usually grouped with a larger census subdivision.
2. A census subdivision with a land area greater than 25 square kilometres and surrounded on more than half its perimeter by another census subdivision is usually included as part of the CCS formed by the surrounding census subdivision.
3. A census subdivision with a population greater than 100,000 according to the last census usually forms a CCS on its own.
4. The census consolidated subdivision's name usually coincides with its largest census subdivision component in terms of land area.

The geographic code assigned to each census consolidated subdivision is the seven-digit Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) code of one of its component CSDs, usually the one with the largest land area (the figure above shows a hypothetical example). This assignment process also makes the CCS code unique across Canada.