Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality


Vaudreuil-Soulanges is a regional county municipality in Quebec, Canada. It is located on a triangular peninsula in the western Montérégie region of Quebec, formed by the confluence of the Ottawa River to the north, and the St. Lawrence River to the south. Ontario is located west of here.
WWW mrcvs.ca

Geography

Vaudreuil-Soulanges is part of the St Lawrence Valley. Two million years ago the region was subject to a series of glaciations that covered much of North America. The last in the series was the Wisconsin glaciation. The ice sheet weighed down the landscape. This created the depressions in the land that created the basins for Lake Saint-Louis, Lac des Deux-Montagnes and Lake Saint-Francis. As the ice sheet eroded, the region was mostly submerged 12,000 years ago by an inland saltwater sea known as the Champlain Sea. Once the glacier was melted, the land rose again, pushing the saltwater into the sea. 10,000 years ago the body of water, now a fresh water lake, has been named by scholars as Lake Lampsilis.

History

During the French colonial period, the region of New France was divided into several seigneuries populated by French colonists.
  • Seigneurie de L'Île-Perrot founded on October 29, 1672
  • Seigneurie de Vaudreuil founded on October 12, 1702
  • Seigneurie de Rigaud founded on October 29, 1732
  • Seigneurie de Nouvelle-Longueuil founded on April 21, 1734
  • Canton Newton founded in August 1791
The seigneurial system was finally abolished in 1854, nearly a century after Great Britain took over the territory after defeating France in the Seven Years' War.
It is the only county in Quebec that lies both south of the Ottawa River and north of the St. Lawrence River. Great Britain wanted to keep most of the French-speaking, ethnic French population of the area within Lower Canada during the 1791 division of Upper and Lower Canada. It is geographically isolated from the Montérégie region south of the St. Lawrence.
The name relates to the historical division of the area into two counties: Vaudreuil County -- for the communities along the Ottawa River, and Soulanges County -- for the communities along the St. Lawrence. Soulanges is a name of Québécois derivation, referring to its southerliness.
Since the RCM formation on 14 April 1982, the division of the county into "Vaudreuil" and "Soulanges" is still salient. The "Vaudreuil" area is closer to Montreal. It is more suburban, populous, and economically and ethnically diverse. By contrast, the Soulanges area is predominantly rural, agricultural, and ethnically French-Canadian.
Owing to the county's geographic isolation within Quebec, and its growing population as a suburb of the city of Montreal, Elections Canada assigned the electoral district to the county in 1997.

Subdivisions

There are 23 subdivisions within the RCM:
;Cities & Towns
;Municipalities
;Villages

Demographics

Population History by County (1855–1981)

Municipality187118811891190119111921193119411951195619611966197119761981
Comté de Vaudreuil
Comté de Soulanges
Vaudreuil-Soulanges''''''''''''''

Transportation

Public Transportation

The region is served by the Exo La Presqu’Île and Exo Sud-Ouest bus services as well as the Vaudreuil-Hudson commuter rail line.

Access Routes

Highways and numbered routes that run through the municipality, including external routes that start or finish at the county border:Autoroutes
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  • * Principal Highways
  • * Developed in the futureSecondary Highways
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  • * External Routes
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