View of downtown Montreal, with the city's tallest building 1000 De La Gauchetière (far left); Marie-Reine-du-Monde Cathedral; and 1250
René-Lévesque (far right).
- For other places named "Montreal", see Montreal (disambiguation)
Montreal (French, Montréal) is the largest city in the province of Quebec, Canada. It is also Canada's second most populated city after
Toronto (Statistics
Canada), and the world's second largest francophone city after Paris.
Montreal is situated in the southwest of the province, approximately 200 km southwest of the provincial capital Quebec City and 150 km east of the national capital Ottawa, at 45°30N, 73°35W, in the Eastern Time Zone (UTC-5).
Montreal sits on the Island of Montreal at the confluence of
the Saint Lawrence River and Ottawa River; the island divides the Saint Lawrence between the main channel and Rivière des Prairies. The city also includes a total of 74 nearby
islands such as Île des Soeurs, Île-Bizard, Île Sainte-Hélène and Île
Notre-Dame. The city occupies an area of 482.84 km2.
3,511,800 people (Montrealers; French, Montréalais) live in the greater Montreal area (Statistics Canada 2001), which
includes the cities of Laval and Longueuil among others. The current mayor of Montreal is Gérald Tremblay.
Once the largest city in Canada, Montreal remains a vibrant major centre of commerce, industry, culture, finance, and world
affairs. The majority of Montrealers are French speakers. As with all major North American cities, however, a great number of
people do not speak the native language of the majority. About 18.4% of the population of the Greater Montreal Area are of
allophone mother tongue and 13.8% are
native anglophone. On the island of Montreal, the percentage of anglophones
rises to 18.8% while that of allophones reaches 27.7%. A majority of allophones speak French or English as a second language. A
May 2004 survey noted that 53% of the people in Montreal speak both French and English, while 37% speak only
French and 7% speak only English.
While the official language of Montreal is French, services are also commonly offered in English in downtown and tourist areas
as well as in areas designated as bilingual boroughs. The city has well-rooted Italian,
Jewish, Greek, Arab, Asian, Hispanic, Haitian and Portuguese communities, as well as a
sample of numerous other cultures from around the world.
Skyline of Montreal
History
Main article: History of Montreal
An Iroquois fort, Hochelaga, was already on the island when Jacques Cartier arrived on October 2, 1535. Samuel de Champlain visited again in 1603, but the French did not settle until 1642, when a group of
priests, nuns, and colonists under Paul
Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded the village of Ville-Marie on May 17 of that year.
One of the members of this group of settlers was Jeanne Mance, who, in
1644, founded the Hôtel-Dieu, the
first hospital in North America.
The village grew and became an important centre of the fur trade. It was the
jumping-off point for the French exploration of the interior by such explorers as Jolliet, La Salle,
La
Vérendrye, and Duluth.
The city was fortified in 1725 and remained French until 1760, when Pierre de Cavagnal, Marquis de Vaudreuil surrendered it to the British army under Lord Geoffrey Amherst.
A fire destroyed one quarter of the town on May 18, 1765.
The city remained populated by a majority of Francophones until around the 1830s. From the 1830s, to about 1865, it was inhabited by a majority of Anglophones, most of
recent immigration from the British Isles or other parts of British North America.
The city's growth was spurred by the opening of the Lachine Canal,
which permitted ships to pass by the unnavigable Lachine Rapids south of the island. Montreal was the capital of the Province of Canada from 1844 to
1849. In 1852, Montreal had 58,000 inhabitants.
From 1861 to the Great
Depression of 1930, Montreal went through what some historians call its golden age.
What is today Old-Montreal was then the most important economic center of the Dominion of Canada.
The Canadian Pacific Railway made its
headquarters here in 1880, and the Canadian National Railway in 1919.
With the annexation of neighbouring towns, Montreal became a mostly Francophone city again by the end of the 19th century. The
tradition to alternate between a francophone and an anglophone mayor began and lasted until 1914.
Its international status was cemented by the World's Fair in 1967 (Expo '67)and the
summer Olympics in 1976. Montreal now constitutes one of the regions of Quebec.
As of January 1, 2002, the entire island
of Montreal, home to 1.8 million people, as well as the several outlying islands that were also part of the Montreal Urban
Community, were merged into a new "megacity". Some 27 suburbs as well as the former city were folded into several boroughs, named after their former cities or (in the case of parts of
the former Montreal) districts.
On June 20, 2004, a number of those former
cities voted to demerge from Montreal and regain their municipal status, although not with all the powers they once had. Baie-d'Urfé, Beaconsfield, Côte-Saint-Luc, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Dorval,
Hampstead, Kirkland, L'Île-Dorval,
Montréal-Est,
Montréal-Ouest, Mont-Royal,
Pointe-Claire, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Senneville, Quebec, and
Westmount voted to demerge.
Anjou, LaSalle, L'Île-Bizard, Pierrefonds, Roxboro, Sainte-Geneviève, and Sainte-Laurent had a majority in favour of demerger, but the turnout was insufficient to permit
demerger, so those former municipalities will remain part of Montreal. No referendum was held in Lachine, Montréal-Nord, Outremont, Saint-Léonard, or Verdun - nor in any of the boroughs that were part of the former city of Montreal.
Origin of the name
Montreal was named for the island of Montreal, which in turn
was named for Mount Royal.
It is not certain how the name changed from Mont Royal to Mont Réal. In 1556, Italian geographer G.B. Ramusio translated Mont
Royal to Monte Reale in a map. In 1575, François de Belleforest became the first to write Montreal, writing:
- ... au milieu de la compaigne est le village, ou Cité royale iointe à vne montaigne cultivée, laquelle ville les
Chrestiens appellerent Montreal..
- "In the middle of the field is the village or royal colony near a cultivated mountain. Christians call this town
Montreal."
During the early 18th century, the name of the island came to be used as the name of the town. Two 1744 maps by Nicolas Bellin
name the island Isle de Montréal and the town, Ville-Marie; but a 1726 map refers to the town as "la ville de Montréal." The name
Ville-Marie soon fell into disuse to refer to the town, though today it is used to refer to the Montreal borough that includes
downtown.
In the modern Iroquois language, Montreal is called Tiohtià:ke. Other native languages, such as Algonquin, refer to it as
Moniang.
[1]
Notable Montrealers
- Gilles Archambault, novelist
- Melissa Auf Der Maur, rock musician (Hole, Smashing
Pumpkins)
- Leonard Cohen, poet
- Ernest Cormier, engineer and architect
- Fifi D'Orsay, actress
- Mylène Farmer, singer
- Marc Gagnon, Olympic Gold Metal speed skater
- Huntley Gordon, actor
- Prudence Heward,
Beaver Hall Group artist
- Florence La Badie, actress
- Mario Lemieux, ice hockey player
- Émile Nelligan, poet
- Oscar Peterson, jazz pianist
- Maurice Richard, ice hockey player
- Lili St. Cyr, strip-tease artist
- Mordecai Richler, writer
- Roméo Sabourin, SOE agent, WW II hero executed by
the Nazis
- Douglas Shearer, Oscar winning motion picture sound engineer
- Norma Shearer, Academy Award winning actress
- William Shatner, actor
- Charles Taylor, philosopher (emeritus at McGill)
- Michel Tremblay, novelist, playwright
- Pierre Trudeau, former prime minister of Canada
- Rufus Wainwright, singer/songwriter
- Cairine Wilson, first
woman to serve in the Senate of Canada
Climate
Thanks to competing climactic influences, Montreal's climate is extremely variable (both by season and from day to day) and is
considered by its citizens a part of the character of the city.
Precipitation is common throughout the year, with extensive snowfall in the winter (usually about two metres per year) and
regular rainfall throughout the year. Frequent thundershowers make summer the wettest season statistically, but it is also the
sunniest.
Significant temperature fluctuations are common, especially during winter and the transition before and after. Maximum
temperatures in winter are usually below 0° C, with minimum temperatures usually around -15° C, but falling as low as -37° C. In
addition, the windchill can often make it feel even colder. In summer, the daily
high averages around 25° C, but occasional heat waves can raise it as high as 35° C. Moderate to high humidity is common in the summer, making it feel even hotter. In spring and fall, temperatures and
precipitation amounts are generally more moderate, although some snow in spring and fall is normal. Similarly, early heat waves
as well as "Indian summer" are a regular feature of the climate.
Despite its challenging climate, the Montreal region supports a diverse array of plants and wildlife. The maple is one of the most common trees, and the sugar maple in particular is an enduring symbol of Montreal and Quebec, thanks to the production of maple syrup.
Economy and Transportation
Montreal is a major port city, being at the start of the Saint Lawrence Seaway a deep-draft inland waterway which links it to the industrial centres of the
Great Lakes. As one of the most important ports in Canada, it is a
transshipment point for grain, sugar, petroleum products, machinery, and consumer goods. For this reason, it is part of the
railway backbone of Canada and has always been an extremely important rail
city.
The city has two international airports. The primary airport is Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (formerly
Montreal-Dorval) in the Dorval-L'Île-Dorval borough, which serves all
commercial passenger traffic. Further from the city is Montreal-Mirabel International Airport in Mirabel, which was envisioned as Montreal's primary airport but which now serves only cargo flights.
The Montreal Metro is a metro system, inaugurated in 1966 in time for the Expo 67 World's Fair held in the city the following
year. See List of Montreal metro
stations. Montreal is also served by a commuter rail system, which is
managed and operated by the Agence métropolitaine de transport.
As is the case of cities, an important problem for Montreal is vehicular traffic, especially from off-island suburbs such as
Laval on Île Jésus,
and especially Longueuil on the south shore. The width of the
Saint Lawrence River has made the construction of fixed links to the south shore expensive and difficult. Accordingly there are
only four road bridges (plus one road tunnel, two railway bridges, and a metro line), whereas the Rivière des Prairies is spanned
by eight road bridges (six to Laval and two to the north shore). See List of Montreal bridges.
Montreal industries include pharmaceuticals, high technology,
textile and clothing manufacturing, electronic goods, transportation devices,
printed goods, fabric, and tobacco.
Places in Montreal
The city's downtown area sits at the foot of Mount Royal, the origin of
its name, whose forested top is a major urban greenspace. Southeast of downtown is Old Montreal, a historic centre with such
attractions as the Old Port, Place Jacques-Cartier, City Hall, Place d'Armes, and Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica.
Skyline of downtown Montreal, seen across the Saint
Lawrence from Île
Sainte-Hélène Downtown contains dozens of skyscrapers including 1000 de La Gauchetière,
1250 René-Lévesque, and Ieoh Ming Pei's Place Ville-Marie. This cruciform
office tower (1962) sits atop an underground shopping mall which forms the nexus of the
Underground City (Ville souterraine), one of the world's
largest, with indoor access to over 1600 shops, restaurants, offices, and businesses, as well as Metro stations, transportation
terminuses, and tunnels extending all over downtown.
avenue McGill College in downtown Montreal
Montreal was host of the most successful World's Fair in history (Expo '67) in
1967, and of the 1976
Summer Olympics. The Olympic Stadium has the world's tallest inclined tower, and is the home of the Montreal Expos baseball team.
Montreal is also home to the Montreal Canadiens, the locally
revered hockey team which is among the most celebrated teams in North American sports.
Montreal is a major centre of Quebecois and Canadian culture. It boasts a Museum of Fine Arts, a Museum of Contemporary
Art, and a variety of historical, crafts, and specialized museums such as the Redpath Museum of Natural History and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The Place des Arts cultural complex houses the Museum of
Contemporary Art and several theatres, and is the seat of the Montreal Opera and usual residence of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (which is scheduled to
receive a new concert hall adjacent to Place des Arts). The east-end Olympic complex includes a modern ecology museum, an
insectarium, and the Jardin Botanique de
Montréal, one of the largest botanical gardens in the world
(second only to Kew Gardens in England).
Nicknamed 'the city of saints,' Montreal is renowned for its wealth of beautiful churches. Mark Twain once remarked, "This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn't throw a brick without
breaking a church window." The city contains four Roman Catholic
basilicas: Marie-Reine-du-Monde Cathedral, Notre-Dame Basilica, St. Patrick's Basilica, and
St. Joseph's Oratory. This last is the largest
church in Canada, with the largest dome of its kind in the world after that of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Other well-known churches
include pilgrimage church of Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours (called the Sailors' Church), and the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, which was
completely excavated and "suspended" in mid-air during the construction of part of the Underground City. All of the above are
major tourist destinations, particularly Notre-Dame and the Oratory.
The Chinatown gate on boulevard Saint-Laurent
Other notable buildings include the Biosphere (a geodesic dome) and
Habitat '67, both legacies of Expo.
Montreal is the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations body.
Montreal has a small Chinatown (le quartier chinois), just south of
the city core. It is home to Chinese shops and restaurants, as well as a certain number of Vietnamese establishments.
Visitor's Guide
Montreal is informally known as a party city. This may be due to the number of students and pubs. First time visitors wanting
to discover Montreal's nightlife should travel down two streets: boulevard Saint-Laurent and rue Sainte-Catherine.
Boulevard Saint-Laurent, known as "the Main," runs through Montreal from south to north and has many sights such as historical
restaurants, pubs, and clubs. The street runs from Chinatown up close against the mountain and passes through the Plateau
Mont-Royal district (a recently gentrified area).
Rue Sainte-Catherine is an east-west street that passes straight through the downtown core. There are many boutiques and
restaurants, as well as strip clubs (which are legal and regulated in Montreal).
Rue Saint-Denis, a street six blocks east of boulevard Saint-Laurent, and the old port area situated next to the river, are
also prized destinations for tourists as well as locals.
Rue Crescent is a relatively small south-to-north street that crosses Rue Sainte-Catherine near downtown's westernmost
extremity. It houses a variety of more upscale night-clubs and terrasses, including Montreal's Hard Rock Café.
Street system
Orientation and numbering
As Montreal is on an island; the directions Montrealers use in navigating the city do not precisely correspond with compass
directions, but are oriented to the geography of the island. The convention for the use of compass directions is that the St.
Lawrence River flows west to east; in reality, it flows from the southwest toward the northeast.
North and south directions are defined as roughly perpendicular to the St. Lawrence River and the Rivière des Prairies. North
is toward the Rivière des Prairies; south is toward the St. Lawrence River. On north–south streets, house numbers begin at
one at the St. Lawrence River and increase to the north.
East and west directions are defined as roughly parallel to the St. Lawrence River and the Rivière des Prairies. East is
downstream; west is upstream. Boulevard Saint-Laurent divides Montreal into east and west sectors. Streets that lie on both sides
of boulevard Saint-Laurent are divided into two parts, which have "East" (est) or "West" (ouest) appended to their names. Streets
that lie on only one side of boulevard Saint-Laurent do not generally contain a direction in their names. House numbers begin at
one at boulevard Saint-Laurent. East of it, numbers increase to the east; west of it, numbers increase to the west.
Odd numbers are on the east or north sides of the street; even, west or south. Numbered streets generally run north and south,
and the street numbers increase to the east.
Names
According to the rules of the Commission de toponymie du Québec , the French-language form of street names is the only official
one, and is to be used in any language: e.g. chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges; rue Sainte-Catherine; côte du
Beaver Hall. Many English speakers, however, use English generics (such as "street" or "road"). Officially bilingual
boroughs have the right to use such names in official contexts, such as on street signs.
In the past, a number of streets had both English and French names, such as avenue des Pins or Pine Avenue,
rue Saint-Jacques or St. James Street, rue de la Montagne or Mountain Street. Some of these
names are still in common colloquial use in English.
There are many streets whose French names incorporate an English specific, such as chemin Queen Mary, rue
University, avenue McGill College. There are also a few cases where two names are official, such as chemin du
Bord-du-Lac/chemin Lakeshore.
Education
Montreal has one of the highest per-capita populations of post-secondary students of any large city in North America, due to
its five urban universities:
Sports
Montreal is the site of the Canadian Grand Prix, a
Formula 1 auto race held annually at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve on Île
Notre-Dame. On July 13, 1982, Montreal hosted
the first baseball All-Star
Game outside the United States.
See also
External links
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