With a population of more than 12 million, Ontario is home to about one in three Canadians. Eighty per cent live in urban centres, largely in cities on the shores of the Great Lakes. The population is made up of many cultural backgrounds drawn to this vibrant province.

The largest concentration of people and cities is in the "Golden Horseshoe" along the western end of Lake Ontario including the Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls. About five million people live in the "Golden Horseshoe." In southwestern Ontario, significant populations live in Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Kincardine and Windsor. In eastern Ontario, Ottawa and Kingston are the predominant cities. In northern Ontario, smaller municipalities have evolved at strategic points along the original railway lines that opened up the wilderness to mining and logging. The cities that have evolved include Hearst, Moosonee, Kenora, Sudbury, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Timmins.

Toronto has the largest variety of theatres and performing arts companies in Ontario, and the second largest in North America after New York. Dozens more fine theatres operate throughout the province. Seasonal festivals, like the Stratford Festival, the Shaw Festival and those theatres promoted by the Association of Summer Theatres 'Round Ontario draw crowds from across Canada and the United States.

Ontario also has well known art galleries, like the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg. In many other cities, regional galleries house fine collections and host travelling exhibitions.

The name "Ontario" comes from a native word, possibly "Onitariio" or "Kanadario", loosely translated as "beautiful" or "sparkling" water or lake.

The varied landscape includes the vast, rocky and mineral-rich Canadian Shield, which separates the fertile farmland in the south and the grassy lowlands of the north. There are over 250,000 lakes in Ontario -- they make up about one-third of the world's fresh water. Ontario's industries range from cultivating crops, to mining minerals, to manufacturing automobiles, to designing software and leading-edge technology.

GEOGRAPHY

• The largest rock formation in Canada is the Canadian Shield. The scars from the advance and retreat of glaciers are evident on the rocks of the Canadian Shield.
• The Canadian Shield covers about two-thirds of Ontario.
• The Ishpatina Ridge is the highest point in Ontario at 693 metres.
• There are actually 1,864 islands in the Thousand Islands.
• The Ontario-U.S. border is almost entirely defined by water. To the east of Thunder Bay, the border runs along the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway, and to the west it follows a series of lakes and rivers.
• Sault Ste. Marie is the Ontario city located closest to the halfway point of the Trans-Canada Highway that runs from Victoria, British Columbia to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
• Natural Resources:
  Ontario's hundreds of provincial parks run the gamut from urban experiences, such as Bronte Creek Provincial Park, to the ultimate in wilderness environments, such as Quetico Provincial Park.
• Algonquin Provincial Park, established in 1893, was Ontario’s first provincial park.
• Lake Superior is the world’s largest freshwater lake by surface area.
• Lake Michigan, the third largest of the Great Lakes, is entirely within the United States.
• Lake Huron is the world’s fifth largest lake.
• Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes.
• Lake Ontario is the smallest of the Great Lakes.

ECONOMY

• Ontario is Canada’s manufacturing leader and produces almost 60 per cent of all manufactured goods that are shipped out of the country.
• The Peterborough Lift Lock on the Trent Canal is the highest hydraulic lift lock in the world, carrying vessels to a height of 65 feet.

FACTS

• The round opening in the west tower of the Ontario Legislative Building was made to house a large clock. However, the clock was never installed.
• In celebration of the Ontario Legislative Building’s 100th anniversary in 1993, a time capsule was placed under one of the copper objects located on the centre roof of the building. The capsule will not be opened until 2093.
• Traditionally, important buildings have the date of construction carved into a cornerstone. However, there are no records of the Ontario Legislative Building having a commemorative cornerstone or a cornerstone laying ceremony.
  
• A fire destroyed the west wing of the Ontario Legislative Building in 1909. When it was rebuilt, sandstone was brought in from Sackville, New Brunswick to make new bricks. As the original sandstone was from Orangeville and the Credit Valley, the east and west wings of the building are of two different shades.
  
• Highway 3 in southwestern Ontario was first known as the Talbot Trail. It was named after Colonel Thomas Talbot who was responsible for the first settlement in the area.
  
• Babe Ruth, a baseball hero, hit his first professional home run in Toronto on September 5, 1914.
  
• The astronauts of the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 moon missions had geology field trips to the Sudbury area as part of their training in 1971 and 1972 respectively.
  
• More Fun Facts to discover.
  
• Ontario is home to more than one time zone. The boundary line between the Central Time Zone and Eastern Time Zone is just west of Thunder Bay running north from the United States border to Hudson Bay.
• Heart valves were transplanted for the first time worldwide in Toronto in 1956.
• The world’s first successful double lung transplant occurred in Toronto in 1986.
  

LOCATION
The name "Ontario" comes from the Iroquois word "Kanadario" which means "sparkling water". Ontario is bordered on the south by the Great Lakes and on the north by Hudson Bay, nestled between the provinces of Quebec and Manitoba, and has an area of over a million square kilometres. Over one-sixth of its terrain, 177,390 square kilometres, is covered by rivers and lakes.

HISTORY
Ontario's native Iroquois and Algonquin Indians first encountered European explorers, fur traders and missionaries in the early 1600s. By 1774, the British ruled over southern Ontario, which was then part of the British colony of Quebec. The colony was later divided and the Ontario region was renamed Upper Canada (it was higher up the St Lawrence River than Quebec or "Lower Canada"). When the Dominion of Canada was formed in 1867, it was renamed the province of Ontario.

PEOPLE
With over 10 million people, Ontario is today the country's most heavily populated province. Toronto is Ontario's capital and Canada's largest and most ethnically-diverse city. Toronto is also the country's leading producer of manufactured goods and headquarters of a large number of Canadian companies. The "Golden Horseshoe," the area around the western tip of Lake Ontario that connects Toronto with Hamilton and Niagara Falls, is home to the bulk of Ontario's population. There is also the properous ara along the western stretch of the Highway 401: Kitchener, London, and Windsor. Ottawa, the national capital, has a million residents at the eastern end of Ontario, on the border with Quebec. In the north, there are a number of key population centres strung along the Trans-Canada Highway and along the Great Lakes: Sudbury, key for nickle mining, Sault Ste Marie located at a major junction between Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron, and Thunder Bay at the western end of Lake Superior.

• Ontario is one of the most multicultural societies on earth. Half of all immigrants to Canada settle in Ontario; of those, half live outside Toronto.
• Sir Fredrick Banting, who won a Nobel prize for the discovery of insulin, was born in Alliston, Ontario.