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Toronto lies on the northwest shore of Lake Ontario at Latitude 43 39 N, Longitude 79 23 W. The name Toronto is derived from the Huron word for "fishing weir". It is located on a broad sloping plateau cut by numerous river valleys. Toronto covers 641 sq. km. and stretches 43 km from east to west and 21 km from north to south at its longest points. The perimeter is approximately 180 km. Some Notable Distinctions About Toronto:
City of Toronto Facts |
Getting around Toronto Public Transit (T.T.C.) Toronto Maps |
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| Before the European explorers arrived, Toronto was called the "place of meeting" the beginning of an Indian portage route linking Lake Ontario to Lake Huron.
When the French arrived in the early 17th century, the portage entrance became an important meeting place for the fur trade. For many years, the French traders found an endless supply of furs. In 1750, the French built Fort Rouillé on the site of modern day Toronto. It was built to protect against increasing English interference with French trading, but was abandoned in 1759 during the Seven Years' War. |
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 Many Loyalists came to British North America after the American Revolution. To settle them, the government bought land from the Mississauga Indian tribe and built a small town. In 1793, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe named the town York. In 1796, Simcoe moved the capital of Upper Canada from Niagara (modern day Niagara-on-the-Lake) to York, and work on the first parliament buildings began. The town of York became a city in 1834, and its name was changed to Toronto. William Lyon Mackenzie was Toronto's first mayor.
The city grew and changed. Massive fires in 1849 and 1904 wiped out much of Toronto's downtown. Sewers and gas lighting arrived in the 1840s. The railway came in the 1850s, connecting Toronto with the United States and Quebec – this increased the city's role as a financial and commercial centre. Canada's first horse-drawn streetcars appeared in Toronto in 1861, and were replaced by electric ones in the 1890s. When the Dominion of Canada was formed in 1867, Toronto became the capital of the new Province of Ontario. The city began absorbing the surrounding towns and villages in 1883. Within 30 years, Toronto had doubled in physical size and increased its population by five times. An industrializing Toronto entered the twentieth century. World War I added to its prosperity, and the varied economy of the area reduced the impact of the Great Depression. Growth continued through the Second World War and beyond, leading the province to set up Metropolitan Toronto in 1953. The first North American government of its kind, Metro linked the City of Toronto and 12 suburbs into a federation. Metro's 13 individual municipalities gave some responsibilities (like policing) to a regional government, while retaining others (including fire protection) for themselves. In the early 1950s, Canada's first subway opened in Toronto, forming the core of North America's best public transit system. In 1967, the 12 suburbs became five "boroughs", and by 1984 every borough except East York had become a city within Metro. Eventually the boroughs of North York and Scarborough would be combined to create seven large municipalities. Today through the restructuring of Toronto's municipal government these seven large municipalities have been combined. The City has a $6.2 billion operating budget , $954 million capital budget, 44 members of Council plus the Mayor, 40,100 employees and is the 5th largest municipal government in North America. |
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