Montreal

Montreal

The city of Montreal, Canada's second most populous city and the most populous city in the province of Quebec. Established in 1642 as Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it takes its name from Mount Royal, the triple-topped hill around which the town of early Ville-Marie was built. The archaeological evidence found in the area suggests that First Nations settlers inhabited the island of Montréal as long as 4,000 years ago. Around 1000 AD, they had already started growing corn. In a few hundred years, fortified villages were built. Located at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers, Montreal covers most of Montreal Island. The Port of Montreal is located at one end of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, a river passage from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. The city's must-see attraction is Old Montreal, a historic area to the south-east of downtown, which contains a number of attractions such as the Old Port of Montreal, Place Jacques-Cartier, Montreal City Hall, the Bonsecours Market, Place d'Armes, Pointe-à-Callière Museum, the Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica and the Montreal Science Centre. The architecture and cobbled streets of Old Montreal have been preserved or restored, and the adjacent riverside area is known as Old Port. The Old Port was the site of the Port of Montreal, but its shipping operations were moved to a larger area downriver, saving the former site as a recreational and historic area managed by Parks Canada.