Toronto

From Metapedia

Toronto is the largest city in Canada and is the provincial capital of Ontario, making it the seat of the provincial Crown. It is located on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. With over 2.5 million residents, it is the fifth-most populous municipality in North America. Toronto is at the heart of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and is part of a densely-populated region in south-central Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe which is home to over eight million residents. The census metropolitan area (CMA) had a population of 5,113,149, and the Greater Toronto Area had a population of 5,555,912 at the 2006 Census.

As Canada's economic capital, Toronto is considered a global city. Toronto's leading economic sectors include finance, business services, telecommunications, aerospace, transportation, media, arts, film, television production, publishing, software production, medical research, education, tourism and sports industries. The Toronto Stock Exchange, the world's sixth largest, is headquartered in the city, along with a majority of Canada's corporations.

In recent years Toronto has had an influx of foreign immigrants with about half of its population being born outside of Canada. Residents of Toronto are called Torontonians. Toronto has a number of sister cities, which are selected based on economic, cultural and political criteria.

[edit] Demographics

As of 2001, 42.8% of the residents of the city proper belong to a visible minority group, and visible minorities are projected to comprise a majority in Toronto by 2017. According to the United Nations Development Programme, Toronto has the second-highest percentage of foreign-born population among world cities, after Miami, Florida. While Miami's foreign-born population consists mostly of Cubans and other Latin Americans, no single nationality or culture dominates Toronto's immigrant population.

In 2001, people of European ethnicities formed the largest cluster of ethnic groups in Toronto, 57.2%, mostly of English, Irish, Scottish, Italian, and French origins, while the five largest visible minority groups in Toronto are Chinese (10.6%), South Asian/Indo-Caribbean (10.3%), Black/Afro-Caribbean (8.3%), Filipino (3.5%) and Latin American (2.2%). This diversity is reflected in Toronto's ethnic neighbourhoods which include Little Italy, The Junction, Little Jamaica, Little India, Chinatown, Koreatown, Greektown, Portugal Village, Corso Italia, Kensington Market, and The Westway.

Christianity is the largest religious group in Toronto. The 2001 Census reports that 31.1% of the city's population is Catholic, followed by Protestant at 21.1%, Christian Orthodox at 4.8%, and other Christians at 3.9%. Other religions in the city are Islam (6.7%), Hinduism (4.8%), Judaism (4.2%), Buddhism (2.7%), Sikhism (0.9%), and other Eastern Religions (0.2%). 18.7% of the population professes no faith.

While English is the predominant language spoken by Torontonians, many other languages have considerable numbers of local speakers, including French, Italian, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Tamil, Punjabi, Tagalog, Hindi, and Urdu. Italian is the second most widely spoken language at work. As a result, the city's 9-1-1 emergency services are equipped to respond in over 150 languages.