Montreal

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"Montrealer" redirects here. For other uses, see Montreal (disambiguation) and Montrealer
(disambiguation).

Montreal

Montréal (French)

City

City of Montreal
Ville de Montréal (French)

Internal
 From top, left to right: Downtown Montreal skyline, Old
Montreal, Notre-Dame Basilica, Old Port of Montreal, Saint
Joseph's Oratory, Olympic Stadium

Flag

Coat of arms

Wordmark

Nickname(s):

"MTL", "The 514", "The City of Festivals", "The City of Saints", "The
City of a Hundred Steeples", "Sin City", "La Métropole"[1][2][3][4]

Motto(s):

Concordia Salus ("well-being through harmony")

Location within urban agglomeration

Internal
 Montreal

Location within Quebec

Show map of Quebec Show map of Canada Show

map of North America Show all

Coordinates: 45°30′32″N 73°33′42″WCoordinates:

45°30′32″N 73°33′42″W

Country Canada

Province Quebec

Region Montreal

UA Urban agglomeration of Montreal

Founded May 17, 1642

Incorporated 1832

Constituted January 1, 2002

Boroughs
List[show]

Government

[5]

Internal
 • Type Montreal City Council

• Mayor Valérie Plante

• Federal riding
List[show]

• Prov. riding
List[show]

• MPs
List of MPs[show]

Area

[6][7]

• City 431.50 km2 (166.60 sq mi)

• Land 365.13 km2 (140.98 sq mi)

• Urban 1,293.99 km2 (499.61 sq mi)

[8]

• Metro 4,604.26 km2 (1,777.71 sq mi)

[9]

Highest elevation 233 m (764 ft)

Lowest elevation 6 m (20 ft)

Population

(2016)[10]

• City 1,704,694

• Density 3,889/km2 (10,070/sq mi)

• Urban 3,519,595

[11]

• Urban density 2,719/km2 (7,040/sq mi)

• Metro 4,098,927 (2nd)

[12]

• Metro density 890/km2 (2,300/sq mi)

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 • Pop 2011–2016 2.9%

• Dwellings 939,112

Demonym(s) Montrealer
Montréalais(e)[13]

Time zone UTC−05:00 (EST)

• Summer (DST) UTC−04:00 (EDT)

Postal code(s) H (except H7 for Laval)

Area code(s) 514 and 438 and 263

Police Service de police de la Ville de Montréal

GDP US$155.9 billion[14]

GDP per capita US$38,867[14]

Montreal (/ˌmʌntriˈɔːl/ ( listen) MUN-tree-AWL; officially Montréal, French: [mɔ̃ʁeal] (

listen), Kanien’kéha (Mohawk): Tiohtià:ke) is the second-most populous
city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in
1642 as Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary",[15] it is named after Mount Royal,[16] the triple-
peaked hill in the heart of the city. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which
got its name from the same origin as the city,[17][18] and a few much smaller peripheral
islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. The city is situated 196 km (122 mi) east of
the national capital Ottawa, and 258 km (160 mi) south-west of the provincial
capital, Quebec City.
In 2016, the city had a population of 1,704,694,[10] with a population of 1,942,247 in
the urban agglomeration, including all of the other municipalities on the Island of
Montreal.[10] The broader metropolitan area had a population of 4,098,247.[12] French is
the city's official language[19][20] and in 2016 was the main home language of 49.8% of the
population, while English was spoken by 22.8% at home, and 18.3% spoke other
languages (multi-language responses were excluded from these figures).[10] In the
larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 65.8% of the population spoke French at
home, compared to 15.3% who spoke English.[12] Montreal is one of the
most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada, with over 59% of the population able to
speak both English and French.[10] Montreal is the second-largest primarily French-
speaking city in the developed world, after Paris.[21][22][23][24]
Historically the commercial capital of Canada, Montreal was surpassed in population
and in economic strength by Toronto in the 1970s.[25] It remains an important centre of
commerce, aerospace, transport, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology, design,
education, art, culture, tourism, food, fashion, video game development, film, and world
affairs. Montreal has the second-highest number of consulates in North

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 America,[26] serves as the location of the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation
Organization, and was named a UNESCO City of Design in 2006.[27][28] In 2017, Montreal
was ranked the 12th-most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit in
its annual Global Liveability Ranking,[29] and the best city in the world to be a university
student in the QS World University Rankings.[30]
Montreal has hosted multiple international conferences and events, including the 1967
International and Universal Exposition and the 1976 Summer Olympics.[31][32] It is the only
Canadian city to have held the quadrennial Summer Olympics. In 2018, Montreal was
ranked as an Alpha− world city.[33] As of 2016 the city hosts the Canadian Grand
Prix of Formula One,[34] the Montreal International Jazz Festival[35] and the Just for
Laughs festival.[36] It is also home to ice hockey team Montreal Canadiens, the franchise
with the most Stanley Cup wins.

Contents

• 1Etymology
• 2History
o 2.1Pre-European contact
o 2.2Early European settlement (1600–1760)
o 2.3American occupation (1775–1776)
o 2.4Modern history as city (1832–present)
• 3Geography
o 3.1Climate
• 4Architecture
• 5Neighbourhoods
o 5.1Old Montreal
o 5.2Mount Royal
• 6Demographics
• 7Economy
• 8Culture
• 9Sports
• 10Media
• 11Government
• 12Crime
• 13Education
o 13.1Higher education (English)
o 13.2Higher education (French)
• 14Transportation
o 14.1Société de transport de Montréal
o 14.2Air
o 14.3Rail
• 15Notable people
• 16International relations
o 16.1Sister cities
o 16.2Friendship cities
• 17See also

Internal
• 18Notes
• 19References
• 20Further reading
• 21External links

Etymology[edit]
In the Mohawk language, the island is called Tiohtià:ke Tsi. This name refers to
the Lachine Rapids to the island's southwest or Ka-wé-no-te. It means "a place where
nations and rivers unite and divide".[citation needed]
In the Ojibwe language, the land is called Mooniyaang[37] which served as "the first
stopping place" in Ojibwe migration story as related in the seven fires prophecy.
European settlers from La Flèche in the Loire valley first named their new town, founded
in 1642, Ville Marie ("City of Mary"),[15] named for the Virgin Mary.[38] Its current name
comes from Mount Royal,[16] the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. According to
one theory, the name derives from mont Réal, (Mont Royal in modern French, although
in 16th-century French the forms réal and royal were used interchangeably); Cartier's
1535 diary entry, naming the mountain, refers to le mont Royal.[39] One possibility, noted
by the government of Canada on its website concerning Canadian place names,
speculates that the name as it is currently written originated when an early map of 1556
used the Italian name of the mountain, Monte Real;[40] the Commission de toponymie du
Québec has dismissed this idea as a misconception.[39]

History[edit]
Main article: History of Montreal
See also: Timeline of Montreal history

Pre-European contact[edit]

Jacques Cartier at Hochelaga. Arriving in 1535, Cartier was the first European to visit the area.

Archaeological evidence in the region indicate that First Nations native people occupied
the island of Montreal as early as 4,000 years ago.[41] By the year AD 1000, they had
started to cultivate maize. Within a few hundred years, they had
built fortified villages.[42] The Saint Lawrence Iroquoians, an ethnically and culturally
distinct group from the Iroquois nations of the Haudenosaunee (then based in present-
day New York), established the village of Hochelaga at the foot of Mount Royal two

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centuries before the French arrived. Archeologists have found evidence of their
habitation there and at other locations in the valley since at least the 14th century.[43] The
French explorer Jacques Cartier visited Hochelaga on October 2, 1535, and estimated
the population of the native people at Hochelaga to be "over a thousand
people".[43] Evidence of earlier occupation of the island, such as those uncovered in 1642
during the construction of Fort Ville-Marie, have effectively been removed.
Early European settlement (1600–1760)[edit]
In 1603, French explorer Samuel de Champlain reported that the St Lawrence
Iroquoians and their settlements had disappeared altogether from the St Lawrence
valley. This is believed to be due to outmigration, epidemics of European diseases, or
intertribal wars.[43][44] In 1611, Champlain established a fur trading post on the Island of
Montreal on a site initially named La Place Royale. At the confluence of Petite
Riviere and St. Lawrence River, it is where present-day Pointe-à-Callière stands.[45] On
his 1616 map, Champlain named the island Lille de Villemenon in honour of the sieur de
Villemenon, a French dignitary who was seeking the viceroyship of New France.[46] In
1639, Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière obtained the Seigneurial title to the Island of
Montreal in the name of the Notre Dame Society of Montreal to establish a Roman
Catholic mission to evangelize natives.
Dauversiere hired Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, then age 30, to lead a group of
colonists to build a mission on his new seigneury. The colonists left France in 1641 for
Quebec and arrived on the island the following year. On May 17, 1642, Ville-Marie was
founded on the southern shore of Montreal island, with Maisonneuve as its first
governor. The settlement included a chapel and a hospital, under the command
of Jeanne Mance.[47] By 1643, Ville-Marie had already been attacked by Iroquois raids.
In the spring of 1651, the Iroquois attacks became so frequent and so violent that Ville-
Marie thought its end had come. Maisonneuve made all the settlers take refuge in the
fort. By 1652, the colony at Montreal had been so reduced that he was forced to return
to France to raise 100 volunteers to go with him to the colony the following year. If the
effort had failed, Montreal was to be abandoned and the survivors re-located downriver
to Quebec City. Before these 100 arrived in the fall of 1653, the population of Montreal
was barely 50 people.

French authorities surrender the city of Montreal to the British after the Articles of Capitulation was signed in
1760.

By 1685, Ville-Marie was home to some 600 colonists, most of them living in modest
wooden houses. Ville-Marie became a centre for the fur trade and a base for

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further exploration.[47] In 1689, the English-allied Iroquois attacked Lachine on the Island
of Montreal, committing the worst massacre in the history of New France.[48] By the early
18th century, the Sulpician Order was established there. To encourage French
settlement, it wanted the Mohawk to move away from the fur trading post at Ville-Marie.
It had a mission village, known as Kahnewake, south of the St Lawrence River. The
fathers persuaded some Mohawk to make a new settlement at their former hunting
grounds north of the Ottawa River. This became Kanesatake.[49] In 1745, several
Mohawk families moved upriver to create another settlement, known as Akwesasne. All
three are now Mohawk reserves in Canada. The Canadian territory was ruled as a
French colony until 1760, when Montreal fell to a British offensive during the Seven
Years' War. The colony then surrendered to Great Britain.[50]
Ville-Marie was the name for the settlement that appeared in all official documents until
1705, when Montreal appeared for the first time, although people referred to the "Island
of Montreal" long before then.[51]

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