Montreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the city is located, or Mont Réal as it was spelled in Middle French.
As of the 2006 census, 1,620,693 people resided in the city, ranking it as the sixth largest city overall across Canada and the United States. The population of the metropolitan area (known as Greater Montreal) was 3,635,571 at the same 2006 census.
The language most spoken at home in the city is French by 57% of the population, followed by English at 19% (as of 2006 census). The official language of Montreal is French as defined by the city’s charter. Montreal is the second-largest primarily French-speaking city in the Western world, after Paris. Though historically the commercial capital of Canada, it was surpassed in population and commercial importance in the 1970s by Toronto, but today is an important centre of commerce, finance, industry, technology, culture and world affairs.
1. Old Montreal is the oldest area in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, dating back to New France. Located in the borough of Ville-Marie, the area is usually thought of as being bounded to the west by McGill St., to the north by Ruelle des Fortifications, to the east by Berri St., and to the south by the Saint Lawrence River. Following recent amendments, the district has been slightly expanded to include rue des Soeurs Grises to the west, Saint Antoine St. to the north and the St-Hubert Street in the east. It also includes the Old Port of Montreal. Most of Old Montreal has been declared historic district in 1964 by the Ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec.
2. Notre-Dame Basilica is a basilica in the historic district of Old Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The church is located at 110 Notre-Dame Street West, at the corner of Saint Sulpice Street. It is located next to the Saint-Sulpice Seminary and faces the Place d’Armes square.
The church’s Gothic Revival architecture is among the most dramatic in the world; its interior is grand and colorful, its ceiling is colored deep blue and decorated with golden stars, and the rest of the sanctuary is a polychrome of blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold. It is filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. Unusual for a church, the stained glass windows along the walls of the sanctuary do not depict biblical scenes, but rather scenes from the religious history of Montreal. It also has a Casavant Frères pipe organ, which comprises four keyboards, 97 stops, almost 7000 individual pipes and a pedal board.
3. Mount Royal is a mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately north of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the city to which it gave its name.
The mountain is part of the Monteregian Hills situated between the Laurentians and the Appalachians. It gave its Latin name, Mons Regius, to the Monteregian chain. The mountain consists of three peaks: Colline de la Croix (or Mont Royal proper) at 764 ft, Colline d’Outremont (or Mount Murray, in the borough of Outremont ) at 692 ft, and Westmount mount at 659 ft elevation above mean sea level. At this height, it might be otherwise considered a hill, but it has always been called a mountain.
4. Montreal’s Underground City (officially RÉSO or La Ville Souterraine in French) is the set of interconnected complexes (both above and below ground) in and around Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is also known as the indoor city, and is the largest underground complex in the world.
The lower floors of the Eaton Centre between the McGill and Peel metro stations.
Not all portions of the indoor city are underground. The connections are considered tunnels architecturally and technically, but have conditioned air and good lighting as any building’s liveable space does. Many tunnels are large enough to have shops on both sides of the passage. With over 20 miles of tunnels spread over more than 4.6 sq miles, connected areas include shopping malls, apartment buildings, hotels, condominiums, banks, offices, museums, universities, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, a regional bus terminal and the Bell Centre amphitheatre and arena.[citation needed] There are more than 120 exterior access points to the underground city. Each access point is an entry point to one of 60 residential or commercial complexes comprising 1.4 sq miles of floor space, including 80% of all office space and 35% of all commercial space in downtown Montreal. In winter, some 500,000 people use the underground city every day. Because of its Underground City, Montreal is often referred to as the “Double-Decker City” or “Two Cities in One”.
5. The Montreal Botanical Garden is a large botanical garden in Montreal, Quebec, Canada comprising 185 acres of thematic gardens and greenhouses. The botanical garden is located at 4101 Sherbrooke Street East at the corner of Pie-IX and Sherbrooke Streets, in Maisonneuve Park, facing Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. It contains a greenhouse complex full of plants from around the world, and a number of large outdoor gardens, each with a specific theme. The outdoor gardens are bare and covered with snow from about November until about April, but the greenhouses are open to visitors year round, hosting the annual Butterflies Go Free exhibit from February to April.
