Largest City in Canada?

[M. Brown]

MSN Encarta says that Monteal is the Largest city in Canada and the second largest Metro in Canada. Is this true? [url="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761569768/Montr

[Allan]

The city proper is the second most populous in Canada, with 1,039,534 residents at the 2001 census. The metropolitan area, with 3,426,350 people in 2001, is second to metropolitan Toronto, Ontario.

Nope. I think you misread the article. Toronto is the largest city in Canada by far.

[M. Brown]

The largest city and second largest metropolitan area of Canada, Montr

[Allan]

Is that from the same article?

[M. Brown]

Yes it is.

[Allan]

It looks like the article contradicts itself then. The part about it being the largest city is incorrect.

Toronto has 2,481,494 in the city and 5,029,900 in the metro.

Montreal has 1,812,723 in city and 3,548,800 in the metro.

Those number are a couple years old, but they have not changed enough to make Montreal the largest city, as Toronto is growing much faster than Montreal is.

[G W North]

Toronto is far larger, and growing far faster. The metro area is growing by more than 90,000 per year. Some of that sprawl, some of it infill.

[Allan]

Didn't Toronto basically outlaw American style sprawl a while back?

[G W North]

The sprawl is much denser than you find in most of America's suburban fringes (a single-family house is usually on a lot 20-25 feet wide for example, and a very large percentage of new homes are townhomes or highrises), and the new developments seem pretty much all be gridded instead of winding cul-de-sacs. You also don't find "gated subdivisions" here. There are still new subdivisions going up on the urban fringes however, extending the built environment out further, thus creating more "sprawl". Because it's so dense though, the built environment is being built out at a much slower rate than a place like Atlanta.

Unfortunately, much of the newer commercial development is just as sparse and "sprawling" as you'll find anywhere in the world. Our suburban residential development is much denser than America's, but our commercial development is largely the same.

[Allan]

Yeah, Canadian sprawl seems to be much more vertical on very narrow lots. In my city most lots are 1/3 to 1/2 of an acre, with many lots that range up to 4 acres in size.

[Wendell FOX]

Technically speaking Toronto had been a larger city (and metro as well) than Montreal for decades, but until 1998 it used a two-tiered city council system that gave more power to its individual boroughs, and the boroughs outside of the original city of Toronto had their own "city halls". So many sources used the ~670K figure for the old city of Toronto which trailed Montreal's at over 1 million. But it's been Canada's psychological #1 city for a long time.

[M. Brown]

One of my friends thought that Montreal was the largest city in Canada. Mabey thats just cuz he goes up there just to drink

[BlackFlag]

Technically speaking Toronto had been a larger city (and metro as well) than Montreal for decades, but until 1998 it used a two-tiered city council system that gave more power to its individual boroughs, and the boroughs outside of the original city of Toronto had their own "city halls". So many sources used the ~670K figure for the old city of Toronto which trailed Montreal's at over 1 million. But it's been Canada's psychological #1 city for a long time.

Yes, all of the older sources will note the city proper as ~670k, but there was a 'metropolitan toronto' municipality of the boroughs of East York (~100k), Etobicoke (~300k), Scarborough (~500k), North York (~600k), York (~150,000), (plus the city proper of Toronto (~600k)). These all amalgamated into the more appropriately named City of Toronto...for better and for worse.

But, the actual CMA of Toronto (including Mississauga ~700k, Brampton ~350,000, Oakville ~150,000, Markham ~200,000, Richmond Hill, ~150,000, Vaughn, Pickering...etc. etc.) has been larger than Montreal since the 70's...as has the 'metropolitan Toronto' municipality. This was at first only slightly, but growth rates between the two were (and still are) very disproportionate. Montreal's problems is its provincial govnerment, and its strict language laws and its prior unstability concerning separation.

So, prior to amalgamation, the term Metropolitan Toronto was somewhat abmiguous, and could either be considered CMA or Municipality borders. As was the term "city of Toronto", which could be municipal metropolitan toronto or the very small circumferenced original city proper.