Montreal

   

For other uses, see Montreal (disambiguation).
Ville de Montréal, Québec, Canada
Montrealflag2.jpg Montrealcoa.jpg
City flag City seal
City motto: "Concordia Salus (Salvation through harmony)"
Quemtl3.PNG


Location in the province of Quebec

Area500.05 km² (310 mi²)
Population

 - City (2001)
 - Canadian CD Rank
 - Canadian Munical Rank
 - Density


1,812,723
Ranked 3rd
Ranked 2nd
3625.1/km²

Time zoneEastern: UTC-5
Latitude

Longitude

45°28' N

73°45' W

Mayor Gérald Tremblay
Governing body Montreal City Council


Montreal (/mVn.tri"Al/ in English, /mO~.re"al/ in French) is the largest city in the province of Quebec, Canada, where it also constitutes an administrative region. It is Canada's second most populous city after Toronto (Statistics Canada), and the second largest francophone city in the world after Paris.

Both the federal and provincial governments use an accent in both English and French when writing Montréal, however it is more common to omit the accent in English usage.

Montreal is situated in the southwest of Quebec, approximately 200 kilometres (122 miles) southwest of Quebec City, the provincial capital, and 150 kilometres (93 miles) east of Ottawa, the federal capital. The city sits on the Island of Montreal at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence River and Ottawa River; the island divides the Saint Lawrence between the main channel and Rivière des Prairies. The city also includes a total of 74 nearby islands such as Île des Soeurs, Île Bizard, Île Sainte-Hélène, and Île Notre-Dame. The city is spread over an area of 482.84 km2 (300 square miles).

The Montreal skyline
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The Montreal skyline

History

Main article: History of Montreal

The area known today as Montreal had been inhabited for over 8000 years by the time that Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded the village of Ville-Marie in 1642 near an Iroquois fort known as Hochelaga. Ville-Marie grew to become an important centre for fur trade, and was fortified in 1725.

Ville-Marie was surrendered to Great Britain in 1760, but remained mostly Francophone until around the time it was incorporated as the City of Montreal in 1832.

Montreal entered its golden age in the 1860s, a period that lasted until the Great Depression. The city was the most important economic centre of Canada during this period. Numerous smaller towns on the Island of Montreal were merged with the city, making it again a mainly French-speaking city.

The tradition of merging smaller cities into the larger city continued in 2002, when the city was expanded by the Federal Government to cover the whole island. Some older towns voted through a referrendum to demerge from the unified city, which will take place officially on 1 January 2006.

More to be added

City government

See: Parliamentary representation in Montreal, 2004 More to be added

Climate

Thanks to competing climactic influences, the climate in Montreal varies greatly, both by season and from day to day, and is considered a character of the city by Montrealers.

Precipitation is common throughout the year, with an average snowfall of 2.4 metres per year in the winter and regular rainfall throughout the year. Frequent thunderstorms make summer the wettest season statistically, but it is also the sunniest.

The coldest month is January, with a daily average of -10.4°C (13°F). Due to wind chill, the percieved temperature can be much lower than the actual temperature, and wind chill temperatures are often included in weather forecasts. The warmest month is July, with a daily average of 20.9°C (70°F. The lowest temperature ever recorded is -37.8°C (-36°F) in January of 1957, and highest temperature ever is 37.6°C (100°F) in August of 1975.

Moderate to high humidity is common in the summer. In spring and autumn, temperatures and precipitation amounts average between 55-94mm (2.5-4 inches) a month. Some snow in spring and autumn is normal. Similarly, early heat waves as well as "Indian summer" are a regular feature of the climate. [1] (http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/climatology/monthly/CAXX0301)

Despite its widely varying climate, the Montreal region supports a diverse array of plants and wildlife. The maple is one of the most common trees, and the sugar maple in particular is an enduring symbol of Montreal and Quebec, thanks to the production of maple syrup.

Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Montreal

The greater Montreal area has a population of 3,511,800 people (Statistics Canada 2001), including the neighbouring major cities of Laval and Longueuil, among other smaller cities. Montreal proper is home to about 1.6 million people after the demerger referendum of June 2004, which comes into effect on 1 January 2006. A resident of Montreal is known as a Montrealer in English, and a Montréalais in French. The current mayor of Montreal is Gérald Tremblay.

Most Montrealers speak French. However, many residents of Montreal speak neither English nor French as their first language as they are immigrants. About 18.4% of the population of the Greater Montreal Area have English as their mother tongue and 13.8% are native anglophone. On the Island of Montreal, the percentage of anglophones totals 18.8% while the total of allophones is 27.7%. A majority of allophones speak French or English as a second language. A May 2004 survey noted that 53% of the people in Montreal speak both French and English, while 37% speak only French and 7% speak only English.

While the official language of Montreal is French, services are also commonly offered in English in downtown and tourist areas as well as in areas designated as bilingual boroughs. The city has well-established Italian, Jewish, Greek, Arab, Asian, Hispanic, Haitian, and Portuguese communities, along with smaller communities of people from almost every nation in the world.

Economy

Once the largest city in Canada, Montreal remains a vibrant major centre of commerce, industry, culture, finance, and world affairs. Montreal is a major port city, being at the start of the Saint Lawrence Seaway a deep-draft inland waterway which links it to the industrial centres of the Great Lakes. As one of the most important ports in Canada, it is a transshipment point for grain, sugar, petroleum products, machinery, and consumer goods. For this reason, it is part of the railway backbone of Canada and has always been an extremely important rail city It is the eastern terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway and home to the headquarters of the Canadian National Railway.

Montreal industries include pharmaceuticals, high technology, textile and clothing manufacturing, electronic goods, transportation devices, printed goods, fabric, and tobacco.

Places in Montreal

Skyline of downtown Montreal, seen across the Saint Lawrence from Île Sainte-Hélène
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Skyline of downtown Montreal, seen across the Saint Lawrence from Île Sainte-Hélène

Downtown Montreal (Centre-Ville) is at the foot of Mount Royal, whose expanse forms a major urban park. Downtown contains dozens of noteable skyscrapers, including 1000 de La Gauchetière, 1250 René-Lévesque, and Ieoh Ming Pei's Place Ville-Marie. This cruciform] office tower built in 1962 sits atop an underground shopping mall which forms the nexus of Montreal's underground city, one of the world's largest, with indoor access to over 1,600 shops, restaurants, offices, and businesses, as well as metro stations, transportation termini, and tunnels extending all over downtown.

Southeast of downtown is Old Montreal (Vieux-Montreal), a historic centre with such attractions as the Old Port, Place Jacques-Cartier, City Hall, Place d'Armes, and Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica.

Montreal was host of the most successful World's Fairs in history, the Expo '67. Partially based upon the success of the World's Fair, Montreal was awarded the 1976 Summer Olympics. The Olympic Stadium has the world's tallest inclined tower and, until the end of the 2004 season, was the home of the Montreal Expos baseball team. Montreal is also home to the Montreal Canadiens, the local hockey team. The Olympic complex also includes a modern ecology museum, an insectarium, and the Jardin Botanique de Montréal, one of the largest botanical gardens in the world, second only to Kew Gardens in England.

Avenue McGill College in downtown Montreal
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Avenue McGill College in downtown Montreal

Montreal is a centre of Québécois and Canadian culture. It has many specialised museums such as the Redpath Museum, the McCord Museum of Canadian History, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The Place des Arts cultural complex houses the Museum of Contemporary Art and several theatres, and is the seat of the Montreal Opera and for the moment the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, which is scheduled to receive a new concert hall adjacent to Place des Arts.

The Chinatown gate on boulevard Saint-Laurent
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The Chinatown gate on boulevard Saint-Laurent

Nicknamed "the city of saints," Montreal is renowned its churches, causing Mark Twain to comment: "This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn't throw a brick without breaking a church window." The city has four Roman Catholic basilicas: Marie-Reine-du-Monde Cathedral, Notre-Dame Basilica, St. Patrick's Basilica, and St. Joseph's Oratory. This last is the largest church in Canada, with the largest dome of its kind in the world after that of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Other well-known churches include the pilgrimage church of Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours which is sometimes called the Sailors' Church, and the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, which was completely excavated and suspended in mid-air during the construction of part of the Underground City. All of the above are major tourist destinations, particularly Notre-Dame and the Oratory.

Montreal is the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations body, and of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Montreal has a small Chinatown (Quartier chinois), just south of downtown, featuring Chinese shops and restaurants, as well as a certain number of Vietnamese establishments.

Transportation

Montreal is a transportation hub for eastern Canada. The city has two international airports, although only one is currently open for passenger flights. Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (formerly Montreal-Dorval) in the borough of Dorval-L'Île-Dorval serves all commercial passenger traffic. To the north of the city is Montreal-Mirabel International Airport in Mirabel, which was envisioned as Montreal's primary airport but which now serves only cargo flights.

The Montreal Metro was inaugurated in 1966 in time for the Expo 67 World's Fair held in the city the following year. Montreal is also served by a commuter rail system, which is managed and operated by the Agence métropolitaine de transport.

Montreal has a problem with vehicular traffic, especially from off-island suburbs such as Laval on Île Jésus, and especially Longueuil on the south shore. The width of the Saint Lawrence River has made the construction of fixed links to the south shore expensive and difficult. Accordingly there are only four road bridges (plus one road tunnel, two railway bridges, and a metro line), whereas the Rivière des Prairies is spanned by eight road bridges (six to Laval and two to the north shore).

Orientation and numbering

Since Montreal is on an island, the directions used in the city plan do not precisely correspond with compass directions, as they are oriented to the geography of the island. The convention used in the place of compass directions is that the St. Lawrence River flows west to east, when in reality, it flows from the southwest toward the northeast.

North and south is defined as roughly perpendicular to the St. Lawrence River and the Rivière des Prairies. North is towards Rivière des Prairies, and south is towards the St. Lawrence River. On north-south streets, house numbers begin at the St. Lawrence River and increase to the north.

East and west directions are defined as roughly parallel to the St. Lawrence River and the Rivière des Prairies. East is downstream, and west is upstream. Boulevard Saint-Laurent divides Montreal into east and west sectors. Streets that lie on both sides of boulevard Saint-Laurent are divided into two parts, which have East (est) or West (ouest) appended to their names. Streets that lie on only one side of boulevard Saint-Laurent do not generally contain a direction in their names. House numbers begin at one at boulevard Saint-Laurent. East of it, numbers increase to the east, while west of it, numbers increase to the west. Odd numbers are on the east or north sides of the street; even, west or south. Numbered streets generally run north and south, and the street numbers increase to the east.

The municipalities annexed to Montreal in 2002 do not follow this system, except for Verdun and Montréal-Nord.

Names

According to the rules of the Commission de toponymie du Québec[2] (http://www.toponymie.gouv.qc.ca/), the French-language form of street names is the only official one, and is to be used in any language: e.g. chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges; rue Sainte-Catherine; côte du Beaver Hall. Many English speakers, however, use English generics such as "street" or "road"). Officially bilingual boroughs have the right to use such names in official contexts, such as on street signs.

In the past, a number of streets had both English and French names, such as avenue des Pins or Pine Avenue, rue Saint-Jacques or St. James Street, rue de la Montagne or Mountain Street. Some of these names are still in common colloquial use in English. There are many streets whose French names incorporate an English specific, such as chemin Queen Mary, rue University, avenue McGill College. There are also a few cases where two names are official, such as chemin du Bord-du-Lac/chemin Lakeshore.

Notable Montrealers

Education

Montreal has one of the highest per-capita populations of post-secondary students of any large city in North America, due to its four urban universities and its numerous other educational institutions, including:

Neighbouring Longueuil, located on the South Shore of Montreal (across the river), is home to the Université de Sherbrooke à Longueuil.

Sports

Olympic Stadium
Enlarge
Olympic Stadium

Montreal is the site of the Canadian Grand Prix, a Formula One auto race held annually at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Île Notre-Dame. On July 13, 1982, Montreal hosted the first baseball All-Star Game outside the United States.



  North: Laval, Terrebonne, Repentigny  
West: Vaudreuil-Dorion, Île-Perrot Montreal East: Longueuil
  South: Kahnawake  


See also

External links


Montréal (06) Flag of Quebec

Montréal City

Neighbouring regions: Laval | Lanaudière | Laurentides | Montérégie

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