Canada's population growth is being fuelled largely by immigration with India being the top source country for new arrivals.

The country added 71,131 immigrants in the final three months of 2018, for a full year increase of 321,065, according to the latest estimates released by Statistics Canada in Ottawa.

The annual increase is the largest since 1913 — when 401,000 immigrants flocked to the country — and the fourth largest in historical data going back to 1852.

Today Canada has an estimated population of 37.28 million, which ranks 38th in the world.

The 2018 Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration said India with 51,650 new arrivals in 2017 was the top source country followed by the Philippines and China.

Immigration has helped tackled Canada’s ageing population and declining birth rate, and immigrants have helped address these by contributing to labour force growth, said Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship.

 Canada welcomed more than 286,000 permanent residents in 2017. Over half were admitted under Economic Class programs. The number also included over 44,000 resettled refugees, protected persons and people admitted under humanitarian, compassionate and public policy considerations.

The latest inflows have helped the nation’s population growth top half a million people for the first time since the late 1950s, the statistics agency said, and are part of a boom in international migration that includes a surge in non-permanent residents like foreign students.