Greater Montreal (, ) is the most populous metropolitan area in Quebec and the second most populous in Canada after Greater Toronto. In 2015, Statistics Canada identified Montreal's Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) as with a population of 4,027,100, almost 50% of the province.

A smaller area of is governed by the Montreal Metropolitan Community (MMC; , CMM). This level of government is headed by a president (currently Montreal mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada).

The inner ring is composed of densely populated municipalities located in close proximity to Downtown Montreal. It includes the entire Island of Montreal, Laval, and the Urban Agglomeration of Longueuil. Due to their proximity to Montreal's downtown core, some additional suburbs on the South Shore (Brossard, Saint-Lambert, and Boucherville) are usually included in the inner ring, despite their location on the mainland.

The outer ring is composed of low-density municipalities located on the fringe of Metropolitan Montreal. Most of these cities and towns are semi-rural. Specifically, the term banlieues hors de l'île (off-island suburbs) refers to those suburbs that are located on the North Shore of the Mille-Îles River, those on the South Shore that were never included in the megacity of Longueuil, and those on the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Peninsula.

Largest cities

+The largest cities in Greater MontrealRankCityRegionPopulation (2021)Land AreaPopulation Density km2 mi2 /km2 /mi2 1 Montreal Montreal1,762,949 2 Laval Laval438,366 3 Longueuil Montérégie254,483 4 Terrebonne Lanaudière119,944 5 Brossard Montérégie91,525 6 Repentigny Lanaudière86,100 7 Saint-Jérôme Laurentides80,213 8 Blainville Laurentides59,819 9 Mirabel Laurentides61,108 10 Dollard-des-Ormeaux Montreal48,403

Cities and towns

+ Municipalities in the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) and the Montreal Metropolitan Community (MMC) Area Regional county municipality Municipality In CMA In MMC Urban agglomeration of Montreal Baie-d'Urfé Beaconsfield Côte Saint-Luc Dollard-des-Ormeaux Dorval Hampstead Kirkland L'Île-Dorval Montrealsubdivided into nineteen boroughs Montréal-Est Montreal West Mount Royal Pointe-Claire Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Senneville Westmount Laval Urban agglomeration of Longueuil Boucherville Brossard Longueuilsubdivided into the boroughs of Le Vieux-Longueuil, Saint-Hubert and Greenfield Park. Saint-Lambert Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville Laurentides Deux-MontagnesOnly a portion of municipalities in the MRC are included in the MMC. Deux-Montagnes Oka Pointe-Calumet Saint-Eustache Saint-Joseph-du-Lac Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac Saint-Placide Thérèse-De Blainville Blainville Bois-des-Filion Boisbriand Lorraine Rosemère Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines Sainte-Thérèse classified as an equivalent territory Mirabel Argenteuil Gore La Rivière-du-Nord Saint-Colomban Saint-Jérômein area served by the Réseau de transport métropolitain Lanaudière L'Assomption Charlemagne L'Assomption L'Épiphanie Repentigny Saint-Sulpice Les Moulins Mascouche Terrebonne JolietteJoliette Crabtree Notre-Dame-des-Prairies Saint-Charles-Borromée D'Autray Lavaltrie MontcalmOnly a portion of municipalities in the MRC are included in the CMA. Saint-Lin–Laurentides Montérégie Beauharnois-Salaberry Beauharnois La Vallée-du-Richelieu Beloeil Carignan Chambly McMasterville Mont-Saint-Hilaire Otterburn Park Saint-Basile-le-Grand Saint-Jean-Baptiste Saint-Mathieu-de-Beloeil Marguerite-D'Youville Calixa-Lavallée Contrecœur Saint-Amable Sainte-Julie Varennes Verchères Roussillon Candiac Châteauguay Delson La Prairie Léry Mercier Sainte-Catherine Saint-Constant Saint-Isidore Saint-Mathieu Saint-Philippe Rouville Richelieu Saint-Mathias-sur-Richelieu Vaudreuil-Soulanges Coteau-du-Lac Hudson Les Cèdres Les Coteaux L'Île-Cadieux L'Île-Perrot Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot Pincourt Pointe-des-Cascades Saint-Lazare Saint-Zotique Terrasse-Vaudreuil Vaudreuil-Dorion Vaudreuil-sur-le-Lac Le Haut-Richelieu Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu

Only a portion of the municipalities and MRC's located in geographical entities highlighted in light gray are part of the CMM/CMA. There are 82 municipalities that are part of the MMC and 91 municipalities that are part of the CMA. There are 79 municipalities that overlap between the two, with 3 municipalities being part of the MMC but not the CMA, and 12 municipalities being part of the CMA but not the MMC. Kanesatake and Kahnawake are not included in the previous counts.

Demographics

Ethnicity + Panethnic groups in Metro Montreal (2001−2021)Panethnicgroup20212016201120062001 European 3,059,895 3,070,210 2,963,860 2,980,280 2,911,230 African 340,140 270,940 216,310 169,065 139,305 Middle Eastern 285,615 220,055 172,345 113,405 79,410 Latin American 137,850 110,195 98,010 75,400 53,155 South Asian 121,260 85,925 79,540 70,615 57,935 East Asian 116,820 100,265 83,420 79,665 58,165 Southeast Asian 101,560 88,755 89,645 68,475 57,460 Indigenous 46,085 34,745 26,285 17,865 11,085 Other 40,565 28,710 23,060 13,755 12,900 Total responses 4,206,455 4,009,795 3,752,470 3,588,520 3,380,645 Total population 4,291,732 4,098,927 3,824,221 3,635,571 3,426,350 Note: Totals greater than 100% due to multiple origin responses.

Language + Mother tongue (2011) Language Greater Montreal Quebec CanadaFrench65.9%79.1%21.4%English13.2%8.9%58.1%Arabic4.5%2.1%1.1%Spanish3.2%1.8%1.3%Italian2.7%1.6%1.3%Creole1.5%0.8%0.2%Mandarin1.0%0.1%1.8%Greek1.0%0.5%0.4%Romanian0.8%0.4%0.3%Portuguese0.8%0.5%0.7%Russian0.7%0.3%0.5%Vietnamese0.7%0.4%0.5%Persian (Farsi)0.6%0.3%0.5%Cantonese0.6%0.1%1.7%Tagalog (Filipino)0.5%0.2%1.2%Armenian0.4%0.2%0.1%Tamil0.4%0.2%0.4%Punjabi (Panjabi)0.3%0.2%1.4%Polish0.3%0.2%0.6%Bengali0.3%0.1%0.2%German0.3%0.2%1.3%Urdu0.3%0.1%0.6%Yiddish0.2%0.1%<0.1%Cambodian (Khmer)0.2%0.1%<0.1%Turkish0.2%0.1%0.1%Gujarati0.2%0.1%0.3%Hungarian0.2%0.1%0.2%Bulgarian0.2%0.1%0.1%Berber (Kabyle)0.2%0.1%<0.1%Unspecified Chinese<0.1%0.1%0.1%

Transportation

Water transportation

Montreal's development as a transportation and commercial centre has been closely linked to its location on the St. Lawrence River at the Lachine Rapids, which prevented vessels from navigating farther upstream. The rapids made Montreal a natural point for the transfer of goods and passengers between river traffic and overland transportation routes, contributing to the city's emergence as one of North America's main inland ports.

The opening of the Lachine Canal in 1825 provided a navigable route around the rapids and established a continuous waterway between Montreal and the Great Lakes, stimulating industrialization and becoming Canada's "cradle of industry". The canal's commercial role was later supplanted by the St. Lawrence Seaway, opened in 1959, whose locks and channels allow oceangoing vessels to bypass the rapids and travel between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes.

The Port of Montreal remains one of Canada's largest ports and the principal container port on the Seaway, handling more than 34 million tonnes of cargo and approximately 1.5 million TEUs of container traffic annually. It operates along the east end of Montreal Island and in the South Shore community of Contrecoeur. A cruise terminal operates in the Old Port near downtown Montreal with more than 40 calls per year.

Rail transportation

Rail history in Canada began in the Montreal area with its first rail line between Saint-Jean and LaPrairie in 1836.. Montreal hosts major intermodal hubs for both Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) railways, as well as head offices for CN and Via Rail.

Public transportation

Montreal has an extensive public transit network with multiple modes of transport:

The Montreal metro with four lines that extends into Longueuil and Laval The Réseau express métropolitain (REM), a separate regional light metro network, serving Brossard on the South Shore, central and western island of Montreal, western Laval, and Sainte-Dorothée on the North Shore Exo commuter rail with five radial lines that extend from the city centre to outlying suburban communities, primarily operating during rush hour on weekends Bus and paratransit service across the area: Exo, Réseau de transport de Longueuil, Société de transport de Montréal and Société de transport de Laval.

The Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM, ) plans, integrates, funds and coordinates public transport across Greater Montreal. The ARTM manages the integrated fare structure and Opus fare payment system. It owns major reserved bus lanes, metropolitan bus terminuses and park-and-ride lots, and oversees major transit projects. The ARTM budget ($248 million in 2026) provides funding to transit agencies for operations.

For intercity travel, Montreal Central Station serves as a main hub in Via Rail's Quebec City–Windsor Corridor and a terminus for Amtrak's Adirondack service to New York City. Other stations served by intercity passenger rail include Saint-Lambert, Sauvé, Anjou, Dorval and Coteau. Gare d'autocars de Montréal is the main intercity coach station.

Road transportation

Greater Montreal is home of the first highways in colonial Canada: Chambly Road () between Longueuil and Chambly, and the Chemin du Roy from Repentigny along the North Shore to Quebec City. The local road network grew out of ( on the island of Montreal) and from the Seigneurial system.

Greater Montreal has an network of more than of controlled-access highways () that connect to Toronto, Ottawa, Eastern Townships, Quebec City and the Maritime Provinces. Two branches of the Trans-Canada Highway from Ontario to the west converge in Montreal before crossing the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine Bridge–Tunnel on its way east toward New Brunswick.

The Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers present obstacles to the road network. Four bridges and one tunnel are the only arteries from the South Shore to the island of Montreal, Laval and the North shore. Two highways — Autoroute 640 on the North Shore and Autoroute 30 on the South Shore — allow east-west traffic to bypass the city, but neither connect to form a ring road.

A study found local drivers lose 63 hours every year in rush hour traffic, resulting in Montreal having the worst traffic in Canada and 28th worst on a global list of metropolitain cities.

Two autoroute bridges are tolled: on Autoroute 30 crossing the St. Lawrence, and Autoroute 25 crossing the Des Prairies River; all other roads are free to use.

Air transportation

Greater Montreal has three main airports. Montréal–Trudeau International Airport (YUL) in Dorval received 22.4 million passengers through domestic, US trans-border and overseas international flights. Montréal–Mirabel International Airport (YMX) was previously open to passenger travel but since October 2004 has been focused on cargo. Montreal Metropolitan Airport (YHU, branded MET) in the St-Hubert borough of Longueuil focuses on regional flights.

Education

+ Postsecondary educational institutions in the Greater Montreal Area Universities CEGEPs and other colleges Other schoolsMcGill University Concordia University Université de Montréal Université du Québec à Montréal Université de Sherbrooke (Longueuil) École de technologie supérieure École des hautes études commerciales École Polytechnique de Montréal Institut national de la recherche scientifique Cégep André-Laurendeau Cégep Marie-Victorin Cégep de Saint-Laurent Cégep du Vieux-Montréal Cégep régional de Lanaudière Champlain College Saint-Lambert (Saint-Lambert) Collège Ahuntsic Collège de Bois-de-Boulogne Collège Édouard-Montpetit (Longueuil) Collège Gérald-Godin (Sainte-Geneviève) Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf Collège Lionel-Groulx (Sainte-Thérèse) Collège de Maisonneuve College Montmorency (Laval) Collège de Rosemont Dawson College (Westmount) Herzing College John Abbott College (Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue) LaSalle College Marianopolis College (Westmount) Vanier College