Overview
- Toronto is Canada’s most populous city and the capital of Ontario, situated on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario; it anchors the Golden Horseshoe curving around Lake Ontario from Toronto to Niagara Falls.
- European settlement began in the mid-1700s with the French Fort Rouillé; an English post, York, established in 1793, evolved into the city renamed “Toronto” in 1834.
- During the War of 1812, Fort York was a key British base that was destroyed in battle, and in the 1960s and 1970s, Toronto surpassed Montreal as Canada’s financial and economic powerhouse.
- The city proper has about 3.3 million residents and sits at the core of the Greater Toronto Area, home to roughly 7.1 million people.
- Toronto’s transit network — buses, streetcars, and subways — is the third most heavily used in North America, though surface routes often face rush-hour congestion (some streetcar lines have dedicated lanes).
