Toronto
Toronto is the most populous city in Canada and the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the fourth-most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario. As of 2025, the Toronto census metropolitan area had an estimated population of 7,106,379. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, sports, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.
Indigenous peoples have inhabited the Toronto area, located on a broad sloping plateau interspersed with rivers, deep ravines, and urban forest, for more than 10,000 years. After the broadly disputed Toronto Purchase, when the Mississaugas surrendered the area to the British Crown, the British established the town of York in 1793 and later designated it as the capital of Upper Canada. During the War of 1812 the town was the site of the Battle of York, resulting in heavy damage and a two-week occupation by American troops. York was renamed and incorporated in 1834 as the City of Toronto. It was designated as the capital of the province of Ontario in 1867 during Canadian Confederation. The city proper has since expanded past its original limits through both annexation and amalgamation to its current area of.
The diverse population of Toronto reflects its current and historical role as an important destination for immigrants to Canada. About half of its residents were born outside of Canada and over 200 ethnic origins are represented among its inhabitants. While the majority of Torontonians speak English as their primary language, over 160 languages are spoken in the city. The city is governed by Toronto City Council, a unicameral body whose members are elected every four years. City council is composed of 25 councillors, who each represent a geographical ward, and the mayor of Toronto who serves as head of council and the chief executive officer of the municipal government.
Toronto is Canada's largest financial centre, and is home to the Toronto Stock Exchange, the headquarters of Canada's five largest banks, and the headquarters of many large Canadian and multinational corporations. Its economy is highly diversified with strengths in technology, design, financial services, life sciences, education, arts, fashion, aerospace, environmental innovation, food services, and tourism. Toronto is a prominent centre for music, theatre, motion picture production, television production, and digital media production, and is home to the headquarters of Canada's major national broadcast networks and media outlets. Its varied cultural institutions, which include numerous museums and galleries, festivals and public events, entertainment districts, national historic sites, and sports activities, attract over 26 million visitors each year.
Etymology
The word Toronto has been recorded with various spellings in French and English, including Tarento, Tarontha, Taronto, Toranto, Torento, Toronto, and Toronton. The most frequent early spelling, Taronto, referred to 'The Narrows', a channel of water through which Lake Simcoe discharges into Lake Couchiching where the Huron had planted tree saplings to corral fish at what is now the Mnjikaning Fish Weirs site in Orillia. This narrows was called tkaronto by the Mohawk, meaning 'where there are trees standing in the water', and was recorded as early as 1615 by Samuel de Champlain. The word Toronto, meaning 'plenty', also appears in a 1632 French lexicon of the Huron language, which is also an Iroquoian language. It also appears on French maps referring to various locations, including Georgian Bay, Lake Simcoe, and several rivers. A portage route from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron running through this point, known as the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, led to widespread use of the name.History
Early history
Archaeological sites show evidence of human occupation in the site that would later become Toronto dating back thousands of years. The Wendat, an Iroquoian speaking people, occupied the territory that would become Toronto for centuries from pre-European contact until the invasion and massacre by the Haudenosaunee from the south side of Lake Ontario between 1648 and 1650. By the 1660s, the Haudenosaunee established two villages within what is today Toronto, Ganatsekwyagon on the banks of the Rouge River and Teiaiagon on the banks of the Humber River. By 1701, the Mississaugas, an Anishinaabe speaking people from Northern Ontario, had displaced the Haudenosaunee, who abandoned the Toronto area at the end of the Beaver Wars, with most returning to their homeland in present-day New York state.French traders founded Fort Rouillé in 1750, but abandoned it in 1759 during the Seven Years' War. The British defeated the French and their indigenous allies in the war, and the area became part of the British colony of Quebec in 1763.
During the American Revolutionary War, an influx of British settlers arrived there as United Empire Loyalists fled for the British-controlled lands north of Lake Ontario. The Crown granted them land to compensate for their losses in the Thirteen Colonies. The new province of Upper Canada was being created and needed a capital. In 1787, the British Lord Dorchester arranged for the Toronto Purchase with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, thereby securing more than a quarter of a million acres of land in the Toronto area. Dorchester intended the location to be named Toronto. The first 25 years after the Toronto purchase were quiet, although "there were occasional independent fur traders" present in the area, with the usual complaints of debauchery and drunkenness.
Town of York (1793–1834)
In 1793, Governor John Graves Simcoe established the town of York on the Toronto Purchase lands, naming it after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. Simcoe decided to move the Upper Canada capital from Newark to York, believing the new site would be less vulnerable to attack by the United States. The York garrison was built at the entrance of the town's natural harbour, sheltered by a long sand-bar peninsula. The town's settlement formed at the harbour's eastern end behind the peninsula, near the present-day intersection of Parliament Street and Front Street.File:Battle of York airborne.jpg|thumb|An American squadron exchanging fire with Fort York during the Battle of York, 1813. The American landing is depicted to the west.
In 1813, as part of the War of 1812, the Battle of York ended in the town's capture and plunder by United States forces. John Strachan negotiated the town's surrender. American soldiers destroyed much of the garrison and set fire to the parliament buildings during their five-day occupation. Because of the sacking of York, British troops retaliated later in the war with the burning of Washington, D.C.
The University of Toronto, then known as King's College, was established in 1827 as the first institution of higher education in Upper Canada.
Incorporation and development (1834–1954)
York was incorporated as the City of Toronto on March 6, 1834, adopting the Indigenous name. Reformist politician William Lyon Mackenzie became the first mayor of Toronto. Mackenzie would later lead the unsuccessful Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 against the British colonial government.Toronto's population of 9,000 included some African-American slaves, some of whom had been brought by the Loyalists, and Black Loyalists, whom the Crown had freed. By 1834, refugee slaves from America's South were also immigrating to Toronto to gain freedom. Slavery was banned outright in Upper Canada in 1834. Torontonians integrated people of colour into their society. In the 1840s, an eating house at Frederick and King Streets, a place of mercantile prosperity in the early city, was operated by a black man named Bloxom.
As a major destination for immigrants to Canada, the city grew rapidly through the remainder of the 19th century. The first significant wave of immigrants were Irish, fleeing the Great Irish Famine; most of them were Catholic. By 1851, the Irish-born population had become the largest single ethnic group in the city. The Scottish and English population welcomed smaller numbers of Protestant Irish immigrants, some from what is now Northern Ireland, which gave the Orange Order significant and long-lasting influence over Toronto society. Almost every mayor of Toronto was a member of the Orange Order between 1850 and 1950, and the city was sometimes referred to as the "Belfast of Canada" because of Orange influence in municipal politics and administration.
For brief periods, Toronto was twice the capital of the united Province of Canada: first from 1849 to 1851, following unrest in Montreal, and later from 1855 to 1859. After this date, Quebec was designated as the capital until 1865. Since then, the capital of Canada has remained Ottawa, Ontario.
Toronto became the capital of the province of Ontario after its official creation in 1867. The seat of government of Ontario briefly returned to the same building that had served as the Third Parliament Building of Upper Canada, before moving to the Ontario Legislative Building at Queen's Park in 1893. Because of its provincial capital status, the city was also the location of Government House, the residence of the viceregal representative of the Crown in right of Ontario.
Long before the Royal Military College of Canada was established in 1876, supporters of the concept proposed military colleges in Canada. Staffed by British Regulars, adult male students underwent a three-month-long military course at the School of Military Instruction in Toronto. Established by Militia General Order in 1864, the school enabled officers of militia or candidates for commission or promotion in the Militia to learn military duties, drill and discipline, to command a company at Battalion Drill, to drill a company at Company Drill, the internal economy of a company, and the duties of a company's officer. The school was retained at Confederation, in 1867. In 1868, schools of cavalry and artillery instruction were formed in Toronto.
File:Yorkville Town Hall, Yonge St., west side, opposite Collier St..jpg |thumb |A group in front of a horse-drawn streetcar in front of Yorkville Town Hall 1870. A gas streetlamp is visible in the right foreground.
In the 19th century, the city built an extensive sewage system to improve sanitation, and streets were illuminated with gas lighting as a regular service. Long-distance railway lines were constructed, including a route completed in 1854 linking Toronto with the Upper Great Lakes. The Grand Trunk Railway and the Northern Railway of Canada joined in the building of the first Union Station downtown. The advent of the railway dramatically increased the numbers of immigrants arriving, commerce and industry, as had the Lake Ontario steamers and schooners entering port before. These enabled Toronto to become a major gateway linking the world to the interior of the North American continent. Expanding port and rail facilities brought in northern timber for export and imported Pennsylvania coal. Industry dominated the waterfront for the next 100 years.
During the late 19th century, Toronto became the largest alcohol distillation centre in North America. A distillery built by Gooderham and Worts from 1959 to 1961 became the country's largest whisky factory. While the factory has since closed, its buildings have been designated a National Historic Site and have been converted into the Distillery District. The harbour allowed access to grain and sugar imports used in processing.
Horse-drawn streetcars gave way to electric streetcars in 1891 when the city granted the operation of the transit franchise to the Toronto Railway Company. The public transit system passed into public ownership in 1921 as the Toronto Transportation Commission, later renamed the Toronto Transit Commission. The system now has the third-highest ridership of any city public transportation system in North America.
The Great Toronto Fire of 1904 destroyed a large section of downtown Toronto. The fire destroyed more than 100 buildings. The fire claimed one victim, John Croft, who was an explosive expert clearing the ruins from the fire. It caused in damage.
The city received new European immigrant groups from the late 19th century into the early 20th century, particularly Germans, French, Italians, and Jews. They were soon followed by Russians, Poles, and other Eastern European nations, in addition to the Chinese entering from the West. Like the Irish before them, many of these migrants lived in overcrowded shanty-type slums, such as "the Ward", which was centred on Bay Street, now the heart of the country's Financial District.
As new migrants began to prosper, they moved to better housing in other areas, in what is now understood to be succession waves of settlement. Despite its fast-paced growth, by the 1920s, Toronto's population and economic importance in Canada remained second to the much longer established Montreal, Quebec. However, by 1934, the Toronto Stock Exchange had become the largest in the country.