Ontario

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Province of southeastern–central Canada, in area the country's second-largest province, and its most populous. It is bounded to the north and northeast by Hudson Bay and James Bay, to the east by Québec (with the Ottawa River forming most of the boundary), and by Manitoba to the west. On the south, it borders on, and extends into, all of the Great Lakes except Lake Michigan. From west to east along Ontario's southern boundary lie the US states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York; area 1,068,600 sq km/412,600 sq mi; population (2001 est) 11,874,400. The capital is Toronto (Canada's largest city). Industries include mining (nickel, iron, gold, copper, uranium) and the production of cars, aircraft, iron, steel, high-tech goods, pulp, paper, oil, and chemicals; agriculture includes livestock rearing, and cultivation of fruit, vegetables, and cereals.

History
Before European settlement, the region now occupied by Ontario was inhabited by the Hurons and Ottawa, and other Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples. French explorers, who arrived in the early 17th century, immediately formed fur-trading and military alliances with the indigenous population and established a settlement and mission among the Hurons at Sainte-Marie in 1639. However, this was destroyed in 1649 and the Hurons displaced by their great rivals, the Iroquois of New York. Thereafter, colonization by the French continued at a slow pace, along the Ottawa River–Mattawa River–Lake Nipissing–Georgian Bay route in the south. In the north, the English Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) set up trading posts such as that at Moosonee–Moose Factory (1673), but did little to develop these isolated bases. The whole area came under British control at the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars in 1763, which marked the end of French colonial ambitions (‘New France’) in northeastern America.

The American Revolution (War of Independence) brought great upheaval to the region. When the British were defeated by the colonists in 1783, thousands of United Empire Loyalists fled north into the area around the Great Lakes. At that time, this formed the western section of the large, British-administered Province of Québec, but in 1791, it was separated from Québec and became Upper Canada (which encompassed the southern part of what is now Ontario; the present-day province of Québec was known as Lower Canada). Native peoples were also displaced; the Iroquois, who had long been allied with the British, joined the exodus north and settled in great numbers on the Great Lakes peninsula. Around the same time, forest Chippewa moved south from the Shield, occupying areas of central and western Ontario.

In the War of 1812 that broke out between the United States and British Canada, the new capital of Upper Canada at York (later, Toronto) was occupied and sacked by American forces. Conflict raged all along the shores of lakes Erie and Ontario; Lundy's Lane, Queenston Heights, Stoney Creek, and Beaver Dams all saw fierce fighting. At the end of the war, the British promoted mass immigration to the region from England, Scotland, and Ireland. Between 1820 and 1840, around 1.5 million people, mainly farmers and merchants, settled in the fertile south. Concern over the possibility of renewed US aggression prompted the construction of the Rideau Canal, which, together with the Welland Canal (west of Niagara Falls) and Trent Canal (between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay) provide alternatives to the natural lake-and-river routes. Discontent with the elitist system of government led to an uprising in Toronto in 1837 (‘Mackenzie's protest’); together with an insurrection in Lower Canada in the same year (‘Papineau's rebellion’), this convinced the British to reunite Upper and Lower Canada in 1841. Within the new ‘Province of Canada’, Upper Canada became Canada West. Eventually, when Canada was confederated in 1867, it became the province of Ontario, taking its name from the easternmost of the Great Lakes (Iroquoian: ‘fine lake’). The federal capital was established at Ottawa. In 1874, 1889, and 1912, the province gained territory from the Keewatin district of the Northwest Territories, so expanding to its modern boundaries on James and Hudson bays.

So many people had emigrated to Ontario in the early part of the 19th century that, by the 1860s, little fertile land was left unclaimed. The lack of alternative employment led many people to migrate south into the USA, and the population began to fall. This trend was dramatically reversed by the coming of the railways in the 1880s. The construction of the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway to the north of Lake Superior opened up the prairie lands west of the Canadian Shield to settlement. Meanwhile, the Canadian National Railway, which ran through the Clay Belt and into the central Shield, accelerated industrialization by giving manufacturers ready access to some of the richest deposits of raw materials in the world. In addition, as steamer traffic increased on the Great Lakes, heavy and light industry began to boom on the Great Lakes peninsula.

After World War II, Ontario became steadily more industrialized and urban. More than 2 million immigrants, chiefly from Europe, were attracted by the excellent job opportunities and high wages offered by its expanding southern cities. Within Canada, growing numbers of people also left the land to find work there. In the 1970s, many English-speaking Canadians from Québec, alienated by increasingly strident francophone separatism, emigrated west to Ontario. The transfer of businesses and capital to Toronto in this period saw it eclipse Montréal as Canada's main commercial and financial centre. Ontario is now home to over 37% of Canada's total population, and around 75% live in urban areas, far higher than the Canadian national average of 65%. Although the southern fringe of Ontario makes up just 15% of its total land area, it contains fully 85% of the province's population.

The flag was introduced by Hassan II, the Bey of Tunisia. Red is an Islamic colour. Effective date: c. 1835. >>