In 2006, New Brunswick's Acadian community totalled 237,575 persons reporting French as their mother tongue. In total 236,100 New Brunswickers have French as their first spoken official language, which means French is their main language of communication regardless of their mother tongue. They accounted for 33% of the province's total population.

Acadians are located everywhere in the province, but mostly along the coasts from Cap-Pelé to Miscou, and in the interior as far as Saint-Jacques There are three areas of high concentration: Madawaska, the Acadian Peninsula in the northeast, and the southeast of the province. The seven counties of Gloucester, Kent, Madawaska, Northumberland, Restigouche, Victoria and Westmorland are home to almost all the province's Francophones (92.8%), and Francophones form the majority in four of these counties, ranging from 65% to 94% of their respective populations.

New Brunswick is still not very urban, and there are many small rural communities where the vast majority of the population is Francophone. Some urban centres have become centres of Frenchlanguage life. These include Edmundston in Madawaska, which is 95% Francophone, Campbellton (61% Francophone), Bathurst (68%), and Moncton/Dieppe (35%). In some cases, communities are separated by vast stretches of forest or wholly Anglophone corridors, such as the Miramichi Valley, or by mixed areas, such as Moncton.