  We present 855 cataclysmic variable candidates detected by the Catalina
Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS) of which at least 137 have been
spectroscopically confirmed and 705 are new discoveries. The sources were
identified from the analysis of five years of data, and come from an area
covering three quarters of the sky. We study the amplitude distribution of the
dwarf novae CVs discovered by CRTS during outburst, and find that in quiescence
they are typically two magnitudes fainter compared to the spectroscopic CV
sample identified by SDSS. However, almost all CRTS CVs in the SDSS footprint
have ugriz photometry. We analyse the spatial distribution of the CVs and find
evidence that many of the systems lie at scale heights beyond those expected
for a Galactic thin disc population. We compare the outburst rates of newly
discovered CRTS CVs with the previously known CV population, and find no
evidence for a difference between them. However, we find that significant
evidence for a systematic difference in orbital period distribution. We discuss
the CVs found below the orbital period minimum and argue that many more are yet
to be identified among the full CRTS CV sample. We cross-match the CVs with
archival X-ray catalogs and find that most of the systems are dwarf novae
rather than magnetic CVs.
