Toronto

Indigenous people began to occupy the Toronto region shortly after the last ice age. Thousands of years later, in the seventeenth century, they opened trade with the French, who subsequently established trading posts in Toronto in the eighteenth century. Toronto passed to British control in 1763, and the creation of an urban community began thirty years later when colonial officials built Fort York and laid out a town site. That community, "York", became the capital of the province of Upper Canada (now Ontario).

The community grew as an important commercial centre, and, in 1834, with 9,000 residents; it was incorporated as the 'City of Toronto.' The population continued to expand to the extent that when Canada became a country in 1867, the city was home to 50,000 souls. By 1900, 250,000 people lived here. Today, Toronto is Canada's largest city, the heart of the nation's commercial, financial, industrial, and cultural life, and is one of the world's most liveable urban centres.

Sir Fredrick Banting, who was born in Alliston, Ontario, worked with Charles Best at a University of Toronto lab to produce insulin. They won a Nobel prize for their discovery. Heart valves were transplanted for the first time worldwide in Toronto in 1956. The world’s first successful double lung transplant occurred in Toronto in 1986.

Toronto is Canada's Number One tourist destination, with 21 million visitors a year. Many Canadian companies have their head offices in Toronto. The country's premier stock exchange, the Toronto Stock Exchange, is here. After New York and London, Toronto has the largest English-language theatre centre in the world.

With 2.5 million people living in Toronto proper, and over five million in the Greater Toronto Area, about half of the province's people live in the metropolitan area. There's a large and thriving multicultural population, and more than 100 languages can be heard on the streets of Toronto.

Some nearby communities include: Aurora, Brampton, Markham, Mississauga, Newmarket, Oshawa, Richmond Hill and Whitby.

Check out the official website for Toronto.

Did You Know?

• Babe Ruth, a baseball hero, hit his first professional home run in Toronto on September 5, 1914.