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The Land
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.
Although the fur trade was the original catalyst for development
in Northern Ontario, many towns in the northern part of the
province were built because of the railway, and today rails and
roads carry the products of the mines and lumber 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 15°C in July,
dropping to minus 25°C 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 22°C 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 a
regional population of more than 4.5 million, is Canada's leading
producer of manufactured goods and headquarters of the majority of
Canadian companies. Ottawa, the bilingual, bicultural national
capital, sits at the junction of the Gatineau, Rideau and Ottawa
rivers.
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
Brűlé 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 Confederation debate of the
1860's 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
present-day Ontario. 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. Approximately 60 percent of all immigrants to Canada
settle in Ontario and more than 100 languages and dialects are
spoken in the province. In Toronto, cited by the UN as one of the
world's most multi-cultural cities, one-half of its residents are
foreign-born. In 1996, Ontario had over 141 000 people of
Aboriginal, Métis or Inuit origin.
With over 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. The provincial government provides
services in French in those regions where the Francophone
population is sufficiently high.
The Economy
Ontario is Canada's most productive province, generating some
40 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Its
manufacturing industries lead the way. Ontario's competitive
advantages include its natural resources, modern transportation
system, large, well-educated labour force, reliable and relatively
inexpensive electrical power, and proximity to key U.S. markets:
less than a day's drive puts Ontario's products within reach of
120 million American consumers.
Automobiles are Ontario's major manufacturing industry and most
important export, employing more than 140 000 people. Motor
vehicles, parts and accessories accounted for 37 percent of
Canada's total exports in 1998.
Mining has always played an important role in the development
of Ontario's economy. Extraction of gold, nickel, copper, uranium
and zinc represents a multi-billion-dollar business. Also, many
Ontario towns have at least one industry connected to forestry.
Ninety-one percent of the forest land is owned by the provincial
government, which licenses logging rights. The forest industry
accounts for 5.8 percent of Ontario's exports.
Financial industries are also a source of prosperity. Toronto
is the world's fourth-largest capital market and its stock
exchange is ranked among the world's top exchanges.
Tourism, the province's third-largest industry, is also
important to the Ontario economy. In 1997, tourist expenditures of
$14.1 billion generated about $2.1 billion in total revenue for
the province and more than 400 000 direct and indirect jobs.
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