Half of Toronto was born somewhere beyond Canada
Canada's most populous city and Ontario's capital sits on Lake Ontario's northwestern harbour, ranking among North America's largest urban areas. Indigenous peoples lived on its ravine plateau for more than 10,000 years. About half of residents are foreign-born, spanning over 200 ethnic origins.
The name began somewhere else entirely. Tkaronto, a Mohawk word for "where there are trees standing in the water," described the Narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching, where the Wendat drove saplings into the channel to trap fish; Samuel de Champlain recorded it in 1615. A portage trail from Lake Ontario to Lake Huron, the Toronto Carrying-Place, carried the name south to the lakeshore. The land itself passed from Wendat farmers to Haudenosaunee villages in the 1660s and then to the Mississaugas by 1701.
In 1787 Lord Dorchester arranged the widely disputed Toronto Purchase from the Mississaugas, securing roughly 1,000 km² for Loyalist settlement. Governor John Graves Simcoe founded the town of York there in 1793 and made it capital of Upper Canada, judging it safer from American attack than Niagara. That hope failed in 1813, when American troops captured York during the War of 1812 and set fire to the parliament buildings; British forces later retaliated by burning Washington. Reincorporated as the City of Toronto on 6 March 1834, it chose the reformer William Lyon Mackenzie as first mayor, the same man who led the failed rebellion of 1837.
Immigration drove growth from the start. By 1851 Irish famine refugees formed the largest single ethnic group, and Protestant Orange influence was so strong that nearly every mayor from 1850 to 1950 belonged to the Orange Order, earning the city the nickname "Belfast of Canada." Railways from 1854 turned it into a gateway to the continental interior, and the Gooderham and Worts distillery made it North America's largest spirits producer; its buildings now form the Distillery District.
Today Toronto is Canada's largest city, with 2,794,356 people in 2021 and more than 7 million in the metropolitan area, fourth in North America behind Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles. About half its residents were born abroad, over 200 ethnic origins are represented, and more than 160 languages are spoken. It hosts the Toronto Stock Exchange and the working headquarters of Canada's five biggest banks.
Source: Toronto
