Montreal (i/ˌmʌntriːˈɒl/; French: Montréal; pronounced ) is a city in the Canadian province of Quebec. It is the largest city in the province, the second-largest in the country (after Toronto) and the fifteenth-largest in North America. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, or Mont Réal as it was spelled in Middle French (Mont Royal in present French). The city is located on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard.
As of 2011, the city of Montreal had a population of 1,649,519. Montreal's metropolitan area (CMA) (land area 4,259 square kilometres (1,644 sq mi)) had an estimated metropolitan population of 3,824,221 and a population of 1,886,481 in the urban agglomeration of Montreal, all of the municipalities on the Island of Montreal included.
French is the city's official language and is also the language spoken at home by 56.9% of the population in the city of Montreal proper, followed by English at 18.6% and 19.8% other languages (as of 2006 census). In the larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 67.9% of the population speaks French at home, compared to 16.5% who speak English. 56% of the population are able to speak both English and French. Montreal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world after Paris.
Montreal was called "Canada's Cultural Capital" by Monocle and recently was named a UNESCO City of Design. Historically the commercial capital of Canada, it was surpassed in population and economic strength, by Toronto after 1976. Today it remains an important centre of commerce, aerospace, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology, design, culture, tourism, film and world affairs.
In 2010, Montreal was named a hub city, ranked 34th globally out of 289 cities for innovation across multiple sectors of the urban economy, in the Innovation Cities Index by 2thinknow. In 2009, Montreal was named North America's number one host city for international association events, according to the 2009 preliminary rankings of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA).
Read more about Montreal: History, Geography, Architecture, Neighbourhoods, Demographics, Economy, Culture, Sports, Media, Government, Education, Transportation
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... Old Montreal (French Vieux-Montréal) is the oldest area in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, dating back to New France ... It also includes the Old Port of Montreal ... Most of Old Montreal was declared an historic district in 1964 by the Ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec ...
... Champ de Mars is a large public space located between Montreal City Hall and the Ville-Marie Expressway ... It offers a view of downtown Montreal and Chinatown ... of stone are one of the few spots in present-day Montreal where you can still see physical evidence of the fortified settlement from colonial times ...
... Dom Moselle, NFL player, was born in Gile ... Joseph Sullivan, FBI agent, was born in Montreal ...
... he began a campaign for the leadership of the Civic Party of Montreal, a municipal political party in Montreal, but later withdrew from the race, and founded the Parti des ... party, he was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Montreal in 1994 ...
... The relocation of port facilities further east deprived Old Montreal of many companies related to the maritime trade, leaving many abandoned warehouses and ... Old Montreal increasingly found itself changing to accommodate the automobile ... of its potential heritage value, Old Montreal was an anomaly ...