Markham, Ontario


Markham is a city in York Region, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the 2021 Census, Markham had a population of 338,503, which ranked it the largest in York Region, fourth largest in the Greater Toronto Area, and 16th largest in Canada.
The city gained its name from the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, who named the area after his friend, William Markham, the Archbishop of York from 1776 to 1807.
Indigenous people lived in the area of present-day Markham for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the area. The first European settlement in Markham occurred when William Berczy, a German artist and developer, led a group of approximately sixty-four German families to North America. While they planned to settle in New York, disputes over finances and land tenure led Berczy to negotiate with Simcoe for in what would later become Markham Township in 1794. Since the 1970s, Markham rapidly shifted from being an agricultural community to an industrialized municipality due to urban sprawl from neighbouring Toronto. Markham changed its status from town to city on July 1, 2012.
, tertiary industry mainly drives Markham., "business services" employed the largest proportion of workers in Markham – nearly 22% of its labour force.
The city also has over 1,000 technology and life-sciences companies, with IBM as the city's largest employer. Several multinational companies have their Canadian headquarters in Markham, including: Honda Canada, Hyundai, Advanced Micro Devices,
Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, Avaya, IBM, Motorola, Oracle, Toshiba, Toyota Financial Services, Huawei, Honeywell, General Electric and Scholastic Canada.

History

Indigenous people lived in the area of present-day Markham since the end of the last Ice Age and the city is situated on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Huron Wendat, Petun and Neutral people. In the early 1600s, when explorers from France arrived, they encountered the Huron-Wendat First Nation. The southwest corner of Markham is included in Treaty 13, known as the Toronto Purchase of 1787, which transferred roughly 250,800 acres of land from the Mississauga people to the British Crown for 10 shillings and fishing rights on the Etobicoke river. The remainder of Markham's land is covered by the Johnson-Butler Purchase of 1787-88 and formally by the Williams Treaties, signed in 1923.
Objects recovered by local mill-owners, the Milne family, in the 1870s give evidence of a village within the boundaries of the present Milne Conservation Area.
European settlement in Markham first began in 1794. The Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, named the township of Markham, north of the town of York, after his friend William Markham, then Archbishop of York. William Berczy first surveyed Markham as a township in 1793, and in 1794 led 75 German families from Upstate New York to an area of Markham now known as German Mills. Each family was granted of land; however the lack of roads in the region led many to settle in York and Niagara. German Mills later became a ghost town. Between 1803 and 1812 another attempt at settling the region was made. The largest group of settlers were Pennsylvania Dutch, most of them Mennonites. These highly skilled craftsmen and knowledgeable farmers settled the region and founded Reesorville, named after the Mennonite settler Joseph Reesor. In 1825 Reesorville was renamed to Markham and took the name of the unincorporated village.
By 1830, many Irish, Scottish and English families began immigrating to Upper Canada and settling in Markham. Markham's early years blended the rigours of the frontier with the development of agriculture-based industries. The township's many rivers and streams soon supported water-powered saws and gristmills and later wooden mills. With improved transportation routes, such as the construction of Yonge Street in the 1800s, along with the growing population, urbanization increased. In 1842 the township population had reached 5,698; were under cultivation, and the township had eleven gristmills and twenty-four sawmills.
In 1846 Smith's Canadian Gazetteer indicated a population of about 300, mostly Canadians, Pennsylvanian Dutch, other Germans, Americans, Irish and a few from Britain. There were two churches with a third being built. There were tradesmen of various types, a grist mill, an oatmill mill, five stores, a distillery and a threshing-machine maker. There were eleven grist and twenty-four sawmills in the surrounding township. In 1850 the first form of structured municipal government formed in Markham.
By 1857 most of the township had been cleared of timber and was under cultivation. Villages like Thornhill, Unionville and Markham greatly expanded. In 1851 Markham Village "was a considerable village, containing between eight and nine hundred inhabitants, pleasantly situated on the Rouge River. It contains two grist mills... a woollen factory, oatmeal mill, barley mill and distillery, foundry, two tanneries, brewery, etc., a temperance hall and four churches...." In 1871, with a township population of 8,152, the Toronto and Nipissing Railway built the first rail line to Markham Village and Unionville, which is still used today by the GO Transit commuter services.
In 1971 Markham was incorporated as a town, as its population skyrocketed due to urban sprawl from Toronto. In 1976 Markham's population was approximately 56,000. Since that time, the population has more than quintupled, with explosive growth in new subdivisions. Much of Markham's farmland has disappeared, but some still remains north of Major Mackenzie Drive. Controversy over the development of the environmentally-sensitive Oak Ridges Moraine will likely curb development north of Major Mackenzie Drive and by Rouge National Urban Park east of Reesor Road between Major Mackenzie Drive to Steeles Avenue East to the south.
Since the 1980s Markham has been recognized as a suburb of Toronto. the city comprises six major communities: Berczy Village, Cornell, Markham Village, Milliken, Thornhill and Unionville. Many high-tech companies have established head offices in Markham, attracted by the relative abundance of land, low tax-rates and good transportation routes. Broadcom Canada, ATI Technologies, IBM Canada, Motorola Canada, Honeywell Canada and many other well-known companies have chosen Markham as their home in Canada. The city has accordingly started branding itself as Canada's "High-Tech Capital". The province of Ontario has erected a historical plaque in front of the Markham Museum to commemorate the founding of Markham's role in Ontario's heritage.
Town council voted on May 29, 2012, to change Markham's legal designation from "town" to "city"; according to Councillor Alex Chiu, who introduced the motion, the change of designation merely reflects the fact that many people already think of Markham as a city. Some residents objected to the change because it will involve unknown costs without any demonstrated benefits. The designation officially took effect on July 1.

Geography

Markham covers and Markham's city centre is at. It is bounded by five municipalities; in the west is Vaughan with the boundary along Yonge Street between Steeles Avenue and Highway 7 and Richmond Hill with the boundary along Highway 7 from Yonge Street to Highway 404 and at Highway 404 from Highway 7 to 19th Avenue and Stouffville Road. In the south, it borders Toronto with the boundary along Steeles Avenue. In the north it borders Whitchurch–Stouffville with the boundary from Highway 404 to York-Durham Line between 19th Avenue and Stouffville Road. In the east it borders Pickering along York-Durham Line.

Topography

Markham's average altitude is at and in general consists of gently rolling hills. The city is intersected by two rivers; the Don River and Rouge River, as well as their tributaries. To the north is the Oak Ridges Moraine, which further elevates the elevation towards the north.

Climate

Markham borders and shares the same climate as Toronto. On an average day, Markham is generally cooler than in downtown Toronto. It has a humid continental climate and features warm, humid summers with rainfall occurring from May to October and cold, snowy winters. The highest temperature recorded was on August 8, 2001, during the eastern North America heat wave and the lowest temperature recorded was on January 16, 1994, during the 1994 North American cold wave.

Neighbourhoods

Markham is made up of many original 19th-century communities, each with a distinctive character. Many of these, despite being technically suburban districts today, are still signed with official "city limits" signs on major roads:
Thornhill and Unionville are popularly seen as being separate communities. Thornhill straddles the Markham-Vaughan municipal boundary. Unionville is a single community with three sub-communities:
  • Original Unionville is along Highway 7 and Kennedy Road
  • South Unionville is a newer residential community south of Highway 7 to Highway 407 and from McCowan to Kennedy Road
  • Upper Unionville is a new residential development built on the northeast corner of 16th Avenue and Kennedy Road