Thank you for visiting Toronto, Ontario travel guide online
Toronto is an ideal destination for any type of traveler. Located in Ontario, it has something for everyone! Our travel guide has the best information about Toronto regarding places to visit, things to see and do, accommodations, dining, and much more! When visiting Ontario, you will find that the shopping, night life, and beautiful scenery has some of the top standards in the country, and will definitely leave you wanting to come visit this city again. Take a look at our Canadian listings and find all the information you need about Toronto, and all its surrounding cities and travel spots. So don't waste another minute, and starting planning your vacation to Toronto!
Toronto is the largest city of Canada and an administrative centre of the Ontario province. Along with such cities, as Mississauga, Brampton, Markham and a number of other cities it forms an agglomeration of Greater Toronto Area with population of 5,715,000 people.
Population — 2,503,281 people (2006).
Toronto is a part of the Golden Horseshoe – a densely populated area surrounding the western part of the Ontario Lake; its population is around 7 million people. Approximately one third of the total population of Canada lives within a radius of 500 km from Toronto. Around one sixth of all jobs of Canada accounts for the city area. View on the centre of Toronto
Toronto is also known as “economic engine” of Canada. It is considered to be one of the leading megapolises of the world, and it has great influence, both within the region, and on international governmental level. They often call Toronto a city with the greatest diversity of cultures – more than a half of its population is represented by immigrants. Even today the city is the most popular Canadian centre of attraction for immigrants. One of Toronto’s particularities is the established tradition of support to national cultures and customs of immigrating groups of population. Therefore, unlike many other cities with great number of immigrants, cultural assimilation is not distinct. However, this is one of the safest megapolises of the American continent, where all the nations get along without conflicts. Toronto was chosen a place to host the G-20 Summit in June 2010 [1]
Originally, the name “Toronto” was given at the end of XVII century to a district without distinct borders nearby the northern bank of the Ontario Lake. No one knows for sure what it means. According to the two of the most popular theories, it either originates from the Wendat indians as “a meeting place”, or from the language of the Mohawks, in which “tkaronto” means “a place with trees growing out of water”. In XVIII century here lived the Iroquois, Seneca, and Mississauga tribes, which, however, did not have steady settlements, but moved along the Great Lakes. In 1788, the British purchased around 1000 km² of land, and on the 29th of July, 1793, the governor John Simcoe chose Toronto as a city to be the capital of the Upper Canada. Afterwards, a city of York was developed at the site of modern Toronto, which emerged nearby the Toronto Islands and expended deeper into the land. In 1834, the city was renamed into Toronto, and William McKenzie became its major. He participated in the most important events in the history of the city – the rivals of the Upper Canada – in 1837.
Toronto grew slowly and by the end of XIX century it was still a small city, though even then it already had an electric tram and a transport network, as well as a network of suburban railways, including an 80 km line to the Simcoe Lake stretching along Yonge Street. However, the city beaches were not popular due to garbage disposed into the lake, and the residents preferred the beaches of Simcoe. At the beginning of the 20th century Toronto was an industrial and transportation hub with policy open to immigration.
Toronto’s growth and its turning into a megapolis is always connected with lost of influence from the side of another large city of Canada – Montreal. Due to separative moods in the Quebec province, in 70s there began outflow of English speaking population and business into Toronto. This coincided with moving of people from the western Atlantic Canada and growing immigration flow from different parts of the world.
Unification of Toronto
Toronto downtown today
Not long ago Toronto included districts of North York, Scarborough, and other. Administratively, these used to be separate towns, which, naturally, looked like suburbs, however, as well as today, they had fully-fledged transport connection with the centre. Unification of Toronto took place on the 1st of January, 1998. Before that there existed 6 towns: Toronto, North York, East York, York, Scarborough, and Etobicoke, each of which had its own town council and fire stations, and was in charge of waste disposal, repairs of roads, and other. There also was Metropolitan Toronto, which had its council (the councils were the members of city councils of the 6 cities included). Metropolitan Toronto kept police, paid for transport and social services. Due to the unification there were abolished the 6 town councils, and there was introduced a single fire system within the city.
Population
Toronto is inhabited by representatives of all large nationalities of the world, including Italian, Netherlandish, Armenian, English, French, Portuguese, Greek, Ukrainian, Belorussian, Polish, Chinese, Indian, Arabian, Jewish, Russian, German, and many other. Architecture and places of interest Toronto has rectangular network of streets; by the middle of XX century two-level buildings prevailed here.Among the numerous places of interest of the centre of Toronto one should single out the following: CN Tower — the highest (1991- 2007) television tower in the world (553.33 m) with a rotating restaurant and express elevators. Court building of Osgoode Hall (1829—59, architect F. Cumberland and other).
Casa Loma private residence (1911—14, architect E. Lennox) an eclectic imitation of a middle-age castle. City Hall (1965, architect V. Revell and other). PATH — an underground heated city underneath the centre of Toronto. Virtually all skyscrapers in the centre have several underground levels, where there are restaurants, shops, small parks and fountains, various offices, etc. All of them are connected by underground walkways (total length of 27 km) with each other and five metro stations, as well as with all the large underground parking lots. In winter, business part of the city goes down to PATH for lunch and after work; here one can see bankers and clerks, students and tourists, people of all races and nationalities, as well as hear virtually all tongues of the world. Often workers of central offices live in apartment complexes located right above metro stations – they need neither a car to get to their offices, nor outer garments in cold season — with PATH they don’t have to go outside.
Rogers Centre (former Sky Dome) — a roofed stadium with sliding roof. Hockey Hall of Fame (French name – Temple de la renommée du hockey) — a gallery of development of Canadian and European ice hockey. Yonge Street is considered to be the central street of Toronto. It begins right after the Ontario Lake and goes hundreds of kilometers northwards far beyond the area of Toronto. Within the city boundary it is the busiest and the most popular street among the residents. Wide sidewalks, numerous restaurants and shops stretching for kilometers create untypical for American city abundance of pedestrians and people walking without cars.
Climate
Toronto is located within the area of damp continental climate (Dfa according to Koppen climate classification). The climate of Toronto is affected by geographical location (on the south of Canada) and proximity to the Ontario Lake; the climate of the region (the province of Ontario) is greatly affected by Hudson Bay located further to the north. The climate of Toronto is characterized by warm and damp summer, lasting moderately warm autumn, and cold winter. Frequent temperature fluctuations may be observed from day to day. All the seasons are very distinct. There are around 800 mm of downfall per year.
City transport of Toronto, which is serviced by the TTC company, currently includes the following: Toronto metropolitan consisting of three lines. The metro lines connect the centre with densely populated suburbs, such as North York and Scarborough. Bloor-Danforth Line goes under Bloor Street and crosses the city from west to east. Yonge-University-Spadina Line goes along an arc or, which would be more accurately to say, has a shape of letter U with its bottom being the city centre, namely Union Station (railway station) and its arms stretching northwards to different parts of North York. The third line is small so far, but it is operational as well. It goes through the outskirts of the city under Sheppard Street, and in future they plan to prolong the line to the east up to Scarborough, where there will be a transit hub with Scarborough Line of light-rail metro. The later serves as an extension of Bloor-Danforth Line of main metro.
Network of tram routes covers the city centre, as well as not particularly remote Сeastern and western outskirts. Some tram lines are parallel to Bloor and Danforth metro lines. Tram routes are usually right-lined and easy to orient oneself. City transport ticket (token) gives the right to travel up to the end stop of a route regardless the number of transfers or type of cit transport – passengers can transfer from tram to metro followed by bus. It is only important that one takes a transfer (a ticket confirming that one has already paid for another type of transport) when paying for one’s trip or entering metro.
Bus routes have rather dense network covering both Toronto (TTC routes) and its suburbs. Suburb routes are serviced by independent bus companies, and city tickets are not valid here.
Education:
Architecture of the University of Toronto.
Hart House – recreational centre of the University of Toronto.
Ryerson University. Management department.
College of Art and Design.
The University Of Toronto,
York University,
Seneca College,
Ryerson University,
Ontario College of Art & Design,
other higher educational establishments.
Culture and entertainment
Art Gallery of Ontario
Toronto is a large international and cultural centre; this is a place of stop for many leading performing artists of the world during their tours. In Toronto there are numerous theatres and concert halls. Among the places of interest one can also name roofed stadium with a unique sliding roof (Rogers Centre, former Sky Dome), where Toronto Argonauts and Toronto Blue Jays play. Large concerts of pop stars usually take place in a roofed stadium called Air Canada Centre – a home ground for Toronto Raptors basketball team and Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. Twice a year Toronto enjoys L’Oréal Fashion Week (Canadian fashion week) at Nathan Phillips Square.
Royal Ontario Museum
Due to price and tax policy, they shoot many films in Toronto produced by both Hollywood and Canadian film-makers. Toronto is also known by great range of museums (AGO — Art Gallery of Ontario, ROM — Royal Ontario Museum, etc.), unique parks and opportunities for outdoor activities. Recently, Toronto saw an opening of Four Seasons Centre opera and ballet theatre, which is known for its acoustics. Two groups (Canadian opera group and group of national ballet) use the theatre in turns. After the recent change of theatre’s management, many claim that the quality of staging has improved considerably. The tickets are normally distributed by subscription, and only those tickets that were not sold by subscription get available for sale. If any tickets remain unsold till the day of performance, they can be bought at theatre cash desks with huge discounts. In such case, one visitor can buy only two tickets. Roy Thomson Hall is interesting by both unique architecture and good acoustics. Roy Thomson Hall is a concert hall, which was opened in 1982 and reconstructed in 2002. It hosts not only concerts of symphony orchestra of Toronto, but also main events of Toronto cinema festival.
