What is Toronto?

Toronto is the capital of Ontario and Canada's largest city, with a population of about 2.93 million in the city proper and about 7 million in the Greater Toronto Area (the Census Metropolitan Area). Toronto is the principal economic, financial, and cultural centre of English-speaking Canada and the fourth-largest city in North America after Mexico City, New York, and Los Angeles. The city is on the north shore of Lake Ontario, about 100 kilometres east of the Canada-US border at Niagara Falls.

Toronto was founded as the Town of York on August 27, 1793 by Governor John Graves Simcoe of Upper Canada (now Ontario), replacing Newark (present-day Niagara-on-the-Lake) as the colonial capital. The Town of York was incorporated as the City of Toronto on March 6, 1834 with a population of about 9,000. The name Toronto is derived from the Mohawk word tkaronto, meaning 'place where trees stand in water', referring to fish weirs built by the Wendat (Huron) and Anishinaabe peoples in Lake Simcoe. The 1998 amalgamation merged the former City of Toronto with five surrounding municipalities (Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York, and East York) into the current Toronto.

Toronto is the financial heart of Canada. Bay Street is the country's principal financial district and the second-largest in North America after Wall Street. The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), founded 1861, is the largest stock exchange in Canada by market capitalisation and the ninth-largest in the world. The Big Five chartered banks (Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, and CIBC) all have head offices on Bay Street. The Toronto-Waterloo Innovation Corridor is the second-largest technology cluster in North America after Silicon Valley, anchored by the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the University of Toronto.

Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world. The 2021 Statistics Canada census recorded that 47 per cent of Toronto residents are foreign-born, the highest proportion of any major city in the world after Dubai. About 46 per cent of residents identify as visible minorities, with significant communities of Chinese, South Asian, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Iranian, Korean, and Italian heritage. Major attractions include the CN Tower (553 metres, the tallest free-standing structure in the western hemisphere when built in 1976), the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Casa Loma, Toronto Islands, and the Toronto-Pearson International Airport (the busiest in Canada). The city hosts the Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL), Toronto Raptors (NBA), Toronto Blue Jays (MLB), Toronto FC (MLS), and Toronto Argonauts (CFL).