The name "Ontario" comes from the Iroquois word
"Kanadario" meaning "sparkling water." The name is
fitting: not only is Ontario bordered on the south by the Great Lakes
and on the north by Hudson Bay, but 177 390 km2, or one sixth of its
terrain, is covered by rivers and lakes.
 Three main geological regions make up Ontario:
the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Canadian Shield and the
Hudson Bay Lowlands. The latter are narrow coastal plains bordering
Hudson Bay and James Bay; the land is wet and covered by scrub growth.
The Canadian Shield, covering the rest of northern Ontario from Lake
Superior to Hudson Bay and extending into the southern part of the
province, is a vast rocky plateau. Although the soil is poor and not
well suited to large-scale farming, there is a wealth of minerals,
forests and water power.
The Canadian Shield and the Hudson Bay Lowlands cover 90 percent of
the province's 1 068 580 km2 of territory, but are home to only 10
percent of the population. Northern Ontario's towns were built because
of the railway, and today rails and roads carry the products of the
mines and mills southward. Farther north, travel is often limited to
air and water. The extremes of the northern climate are a fact of life
there. At Winisk, mean daily temperatures reach only 12 to 15oC in
July, dropping to -25oC in January.
The five Great Lakes are the most visible results of the ice age in
Ontario, and the biggest, Lake Superior, is the world's largest body
of fresh water.
 The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands make up
the rest of southern Ontario and contain most of the population,
industry, commerce and agricultural lands. The Lowlands include the
Windsor-Thousand Islands-St. Lawrence Valley triangle. Mean annual
summer temperatures reach 22oC in the south, where the temperate
climate and fertile soils nurture a major agricultural industry. This
relatively small area has more than half of Canada's best agricultural
land.
Toronto--Ontario's capital and Canada's largest city, with its
cultural diversity, presents the world in an encapsulated version.
You can have a "global" experience within this great city!
Whether you are a theatre buff. a sports fan, or a gourmet...Toronto
is an city you should not miss.
 The History
Ontario's first peoples arrived about 10 000 years ago, during the
last ice age. The European explorers encountered the Iroquois and
Algonquin descendants of those first migrants in the 17th century.
Sailing into the large bay that bears his name, Henry Hudson became
the first European to touch the shores of present-day Ontario in 1610;
in 1613, Samuel de Champlain and Étienne Brûlé made the first
contacts with the Aboriginal people in the southern part of the
province.
In 1774 the British ruled over southern Ontario, then part of the
British colony of Quebec. Under the Constitutional Act of 1791,
"Quebec" was divided in two and Ontario renamed Upper
Canada. This became necessary with the tremendous influx of Loyalist
refugees after the American Revolution.
In 1840, the Act of Union saw Upper and Lower Canada reunited, this
time with the name Canada. The two regions, Canada West and Canada
East, took part in the 1864 Confederation debate and, when the
Dominion of Canada was created in 1867, became the separate provinces
of Ontario and Quebec.
 The People
From 1779 on, waves of English, Scottish and Irish immigrants
followed one another, moving up the St. Lawrence and populating the
country. Today, immigration continues to be important to Ontario, and
there are large numbers of people of Italian, German, Chinese, Dutch,
Portuguese, Indian, Polish and Caribbean origin.
In 1991, Ontario had almost 250,000 people of Aboriginal, Métis or
Inuit origin.
With approximately 11 million people, Ontario is the country's most
heavily populated province. While English is the official language,
Ontario's Francophones play an essential part in the province's
cultural life and are the largest language minority. The provincial
government provides services in French in those regions where the
Francophone population is sufficiently high.
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