Welcome to Ontario!
Ontario is Canada's second-largest province, and the most populous, with more than 14 million inhabitants. It is home to the Canadian capital city of Ottawa, and Toronto, which is Ontario's capital and Canada's largest city.
Stretching from the shores of Hudson Bay (an arm of the Arctic Ocean) in the north to four of the five Great Lakes in the South and from Manitoba in the west to Quebec in the east, Ontario is truly massive at over a million square kilometres (almost half a million square miles). That equates to seven and half times as large neighbouring New York State.
However most of that area is remote wilderness untouched by tourism, apart from camping, fishing, and hunting. Most visitors stay in the more densely populated southern part of the province which is at the same time a fertile farming region, Canada's main industrial area, and English Canada's political, media and cultural hub. The national capital, Ottawa, features numerous monuments and museums, of course. The preeminent urban region, however, is Greater Toronto, seventh most populous metropolitan area in North America with more than six million people or almost half of all Ontarians. Here one finds of usual suite of amenities associated with big-city life but with the added twist that Ontario is one world's greatest international migration magnets, drawing people from across the world is huge numbers since Canadian immigration laws were relaxed in the 1960s: in 2014, 51% (a majority) of Torontonians were born outside of Canada, with more than more than one in ten people being immigrants even in smaller centres such as Kitchener, London, or Windsor. It isn't too much exaggeration to say that it is possible to see "the world in miniature" in Ontario, just by visiting its diverse urban neighbourhoods, and especially their range of different ethnic restaurants.
However, even southern Ontario is known as much or more for its rural landscapes, particularly its clean lakes and rivers within a day's driving distance of Toronto, the so-called "cottage country" where many lakeside properties are available for short-term rentals, but also natural landmarks like Niagara Falls, and even a few wine regions in the southernmost regions of the province.
Ontario is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. Located in Central Canada, it is Canada's most populous province, with 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province by total area (after Quebec). Ontario is Canada's fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also Ontario's provincial capital.
Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east and northeast, and to the south by the U.S. states of (from west to east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Almost all of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,678 mi) border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the westerly Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. These include Rainy River, Pigeon River, Lake Superior, St. Marys River, Lake Huron, St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, Detroit River, Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall. There is only about 1 km (0.6 mi) of land border, made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.Ontario is sometimes divided into two geographic regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontario's population and arable land is in the south. In contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation.