A few decades ago, most Acadian regions of New Brunswick were amongst the poorest in Canada. The main objective of this article is to see if these disparities still exist today. We start with the fact that Acadian regions of New Brunswick are essentially rural. Our analysis is thus from an urban-rural perspective. Four groups of variables (demographics, income, education and labour market) are used to evaluate the economic performance of Acadian regions between 1986 and 2011. We find that counties in southeastern New Brunswick – Kent and especially Westmorland – have generally outperformed the reference regions. It is less the case for counties in northern New Brunswick, whether we compare them to the national average or the average of the reference regions. The only variable where we see a relative improvement in all Acadian counties is the dependency on government transfers. This does not necessarily reflect an improvement of economic conditions, but more probably the impact of changes in government programs, such as employment insurance. We will also point to the significant demographic challenges, as much for the growth rate as the immigration rate.