Toronto is the most populous city in Canada and the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. It is located on a harbour at the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. The city is the fourth-most populous city in North America, behind Mexico City, New York City, and Los Angeles, with a census population of 2,794,356 as of 2021. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is constituted of Toronto proper and four surrounding regions, Peel, York, Durham, and Halton, and has a population of 6,712,341, while the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), with a somewhat different definition, has a population of 7,106,379. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.
Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Toronto area, located on a broad sloping plateau interspersed with rivers, deep ravines, and urban forest, for more than 10,000 years. After the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase, when the Mississaugas surrendered the area to the British Crown, the British established the town of York in 1793 and later designated it as the capital of Upper Canada. During the War of 1812, the town was the site of the Battle of York, resulting in heavy damage and a two-week occupation by American troops. York was renamed and incorporated in 1834 as the City of Toronto. It was designated as the capital of the province of Ontario in 1867 during Canadian Confederation. Toronto's city proper has since expanded past its original limits through both annexation and amalgamation to its current area of in 1998.
The diverse population of Toronto reflects its current and historical role as an important destination for immigrants to Canada. About half of its residents were born outside of Canada and over 200 ethnic origins are represented among its inhabitants. While the majority of Torontonians speak English as their primary language, over 160 languages are spoken in the city. The city is governed by Toronto City Council, a unicameral body whose members are elected every four years. City council is composed of 25 councillors, who each represent a geographical ward, and the mayor of Toronto who serves as head of council and the chief executive officer of the municipal government.
Toronto is Canada's largest financial centre, and is home to the Toronto Stock Exchange, the de facto operational headquarters of Canada's five largest banks, and the headquarters of many large Canadian and multinational corporations. Its economy is highly diversified with strengths in technology, design, financial services, life sciences, education, arts, fashion, aerospace, environmental innovation, food services, and tourism. Toronto is a prominent centre for music, theatre, motion picture production, television production, and digital media production, and is home to the headquarters of Canada's major national broadcast networks and media outlets. Its varied cultural institutions, which include numerous museums and galleries, festivals and public events, entertainment districts, national historic sites, and sports activities, attract over 26 million visitors each year.
Etymology
The name Toronto has been recorded with various spellings in French and English, including Tarento, Tarontha, Taronto, Toranto, Torento, Toronto, and Toronton. The most frequent early spelling, Taronto, referred to "The Narrows", a channel of water through which Lake Simcoe discharges into Lake Couchiching where the Wendat had planted tree saplings to corral fish at what is now the Mnjikaning Fish Weirs site in Orillia. This narrows was called by the Mohawk, meaning 'where there are trees standing in the water', and was recorded as early as 1615 by Samuel de Champlain. The word , meaning 'plenty', also appears in a 1632 French lexicon of the Wendat language, which is also an Iroquoian language. Toronto also appears on French maps referring to various locations, including Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, and several rivers. A portage route from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron running through this point, known as the "Toronto Carrying-Place Trail", led to widespread use of the name.
History
Early history Archaeological sites show evidence of human occupation in the site that would later become Toronto dating back thousands of years. The Wendat, an Iroquoian speaking agricultural people, occupied and farmed the territory that would become Toronto for centuries from pre-European contact until the invasion and massacre by the Haudenosaunee, another Iroquoian speaking agricultural people, from the south side of Lake Ontario between 1648 and 1650. By the 1660s, the Haudenosaunee established two villages within what is today Toronto, Ganatsekwyagon (Bead Hill) on the banks of the Rouge River and Teiaiagon on the banks of the Humber River. By 1701, the Mississaugas, an Anishinaabe speaking hunter-gatherer people from Northern Ontario, had displaced the Haudenosaunee, who abandoned the Toronto area at the end of the Beaver Wars, with most returning to their homeland in present-day New York state.
French traders founded Fort Rouillé in 1750 (the current Exhibition grounds were later developed there), but abandoned it in 1759 during the Seven Years' War. The British defeated the French and their indigenous allies in the war, and the area became part of the British colony of Quebec in 1763.
During the American Revolutionary War, an influx of British settlers arrived there as United Empire Loyalists fled for the British-controlled lands north of Lake Ontario. The Crown granted them land to compensate for their losses in the Thirteen Colonies. The new province of Upper Canada was being created and needed a capital. In 1787, the British Lord Dorchester arranged for the Toronto Purchase with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, thereby securing more than a quarter of a million acres (1000 km2) of land in the Toronto area.Natives and newcomers, 1600–1793 , City of Toronto (2006). Retrieved December 8, 2006. Dorchester intended the location to be named Toronto. The first 25 years after the Toronto purchase were quiet, although "there were occasional independent fur traders" present in the area, with the usual complaints of debauchery and drunkenness.
Town of York (1793–1834) In 1793, Governor John Graves Simcoe established the town of York on the Toronto Purchase lands, naming it after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Simcoe decided to move the Upper Canada capital from Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) to York, believing the new site would be less vulnerable to attack by the United States. The York garrison was built at the entrance of the town's natural harbour, sheltered by a long sand-bar peninsula. The town's settlement formed at the harbour's eastern end behind the peninsula, near the present-day intersection of Parliament Street and Front Street (in the "Old Town" area).
In 1813, as part of the War of 1812, the Battle of York ended in the town's capture and plunder by United States forces. John Strachan negotiated the town's surrender. American soldiers destroyed much of the garrison and set fire to the parliament buildings during their five-day occupation. Because of the sacking of York, British troops retaliated later in the war with the burning of Washington, D.C.
The University of Toronto, then known as King's College, was established in 1827 as the first institution of higher education in Upper Canada.
Incorporation and development (1834–1954) York was incorporated as the "City of Toronto" on March 6, 1834, adopting the Indigenous name. Reformist politician William Lyon Mackenzie became the first mayor of Toronto. Mackenzie would later lead the unsuccessful Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 against the British colonial government.
Toronto's population of 9,000 included some African-American slaves, some of whom had been brought by the Loyalists, and Black Loyalists, whom the Crown had freed (most of the latter were resettled in Nova Scotia). By 1834, refugee slaves from America's South were also immigrating to Toronto to gain freedom. Slavery was banned outright in Upper Canada (and throughout the British Empire) in 1834. Torontonians integrated people of colour into their society. In the 1840s, an eating house at Frederick and King Streets, a place of mercantile prosperity in the early city, was operated by a black man named Bloxom.
As a major destination for immigrants to Canada, the city grew rapidly through the remainder of the 19th century. The first significant wave of immigrants were Irish, fleeing the Great Irish Famine; most of them were Catholic. By 1851, the Irish-born population had become the largest single ethnic group in the city. The Scottish and English population welcomed smaller numbers of Protestant Irish immigrants, some from what is now Northern Ireland, which gave the Orange Order significant and long-lasting influence over Toronto society. Almost every mayor of Toronto was a member of the Orange Order between 1850 and 1950, and the city was sometimes referred to as the "Belfast of Canada" because of Orange influence in municipal politics and administration.
For brief periods, Toronto was twice the capital of the united Province of Canada: first from 1849 to 1851, following unrest in Montreal, and later from 1855 to 1859. After this date, Quebec was designated as the capital until 1865 (two years before Canadian Confederation). Since then, the capital of Canada has remained as Ottawa, Ontario.
Toronto became the capital of the province of Ontario after its official creation in 1867. The seat of government of Ontario briefly returned to the same building that had served as the Third Parliament Building of Upper Canada, before moving to the Ontario Legislative Building at Queen's Park in 1893. Because of its provincial capital status, the city was also the location of Government House, the residence of the viceregal representative of the Crown in right of Ontario.
Long before the Royal Military College of Canada was established in 1876, supporters of the concept proposed military colleges in Canada. Staffed by British Regulars, adult male students underwent a three-month-long military course at the School of Military Instruction in Toronto. Established by Militia General Order in 1864, the school enabled officers of militia or candidates for commission or promotion in the Militia to learn military duties, drill and discipline, to command a company at Battalion Drill, to drill a company at Company Drill, the internal economy of a company, and the duties of a company's officer. The school was retained at Confederation, in 1867. In 1868, schools of cavalry and artillery instruction were formed in Toronto.
In the 19th century, the city built an extensive sewage system to improve sanitation, and streets were illuminated with gas lighting as a regular service. Long-distance railway lines were constructed, including a route completed in 1854 linking Toronto with the Upper Great Lakes. The Grand Trunk Railway and the Northern Railway of Canada joined in the building of the first Union Station downtown. The advent of the railway dramatically increased the numbers of immigrants arriving, commerce and industry, as had the Lake Ontario steamers and schooners entering port before. These enabled Toronto to become a major gateway linking the world to the interior of the North American continent. Expanding port and rail facilities brought in northern timber for export and imported Pennsylvania coal. Industry dominated the waterfront for the next 100 years.