Largest city in Quebec, Canada
About Montreal
Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest in Canada, and the eighth-largest in North America. Founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it now takes its name from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked mountain around which the early settlement was built. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal and several much smaller, peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It lies 196 kilometres (122 mi) east of the national capital, Ottawa, and 258 kilometres (160 mi) southwest of the provincial capital, Quebec City.
Etymology and original names
In the Ojibwe language, the land is called Mooniyaang or Moon’yaang which was "the first stopping place" in the Ojibwe migration story as related in the seven fires prophecy. In the Mohawk language, the land is called Tiohtià:ke. This is an abbreviation of Teionihtiohtiá:kon, which loosely translates as "where the group divided/parted ways". French settlers from La Flèche in the Loire Valley first named their new town, founded in 1642, Ville Marie ("City of Mary"), named for the Virgin Mary. The current form of the name, Montréal, is generally thought to be derived from Mount Royal (Mont Royal in French), the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. There are multiple explanations for how Mont Royal became Montréal. In 16th-century French, the forms réal and royal were used interchangeably, so Montréal could simply be a variant of Mont Royal. …
History
Archaeological evidence in the region indicates that First Nations native people occupied the island of Montreal as early as 4,000 years ago. By the year AD 1000, they had started to cultivate maize. Within a few hundred years, they had built fortified villages. The Saint Lawrence Iroquoians, an ethnically and culturally distinct group from the Iroquois nations of the Haudenosaunee (then based in present-day New York), established the village of Hochelaga at the foot of Mount Royal two centuries before the French arrived. Archeologists have found evidence of their habitation there and at other locations in the valley since at least the 14th century. The French explorer Jacques Cartier visited Hochelaga on October 2, 1535, and estimated the population of the native people at Hochelaga to be "over a thousand people". …
Geography
Montreal is in the southwest of the province of Quebec. The city covers most of the Island of Montreal at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. The port of Montreal lies at one end of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, the river gateway that stretches from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. Montreal is defined by its location between the Saint Lawrence river to its south and the Rivière des Prairies to its north. The city is named after the most prominent geographical feature on the island, a three-head mountain called Mount Royal, topped at 232 metres (761 ft) above sea level. Montreal is at the centre of the Montreal Metropolitan Community, and is bordered by the city of Laval to the north; Longueuil, Saint-Lambert, Brossard, and other municipalities to the south; Repentigny to the east and the West Island municipalities to the west. …
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