Welcome to Guelph!
Guelph is a city of 132,000 people (2016) in Southwestern Ontario on the banks of the Speed River less than an hour's drive west of Toronto. Guelph is known for its beautiful limestone architecture, vibrant culture, and a variety of festivals.
Guelph (2016 population 131,794) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly 28 km (17 mi) east of Kitchener and 100 km (62 mi) west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7, and Wellington County Road 124. It is the seat of Wellington County but is politically independent of it. The city is built on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Guelph began as a settlement in the 1820s, established by Scotsman John Galt, who was in Upper Canada as the first Superintendent of the Canada Company. He based the headquarters, and his home, in the community. The area – much of which became Wellington County – had been part of the Halton Block, a Crown Reserve for the Six Nations Iroquois. Galt would later be considered the founder of Guelph.
For many years, Guelph ranked at or near the bottom of Canada's crime severity list. However, the 2017 Crime Severity Index showed a 15% increase from 2016. Guelph has been noted as having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country throughout the Great Recession. In late 2018, the Guelph Eramosa and Puslinch entity had an unemployment rate of 2.3 percent, which decreased to 1.9 percent by January 2019, the lowest of all Canadian cities. The national unemployment rate at the time was 5.8 percent. Much of this achievement was attributed to the numerous manufacturing facilities, including Linamar.