Montreal (French: Montréal) is the cultural capital of Quebec and the main entry point to the province. The second largest city in Canada, it is a city rich in culture and history, has an inordinate number of attractive, fashionably dressed people, and a well-deserved reputation as one of the liveliest cities in North America. Montreal is home to the second-largest Francophone (that is, French-speaking) population in the western world, with Paris being the largest.

Districts

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Vieux Montréal

The Plateau

Downtown

Gay Village

Little Italy

Quartier Latin

East End

South West

West Island

Square Cartier

Quartier International

Understand

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Situated on an island in the St. Lawrence River just at its highest navigable point, Montreal has been a strategic location since before the arrival of Europeans in Canada. A thriving First Nations Mohawk community called Hochelaga was on the site of present-day Montreal when explorer Jacques Cartier first visited in 1535. A hundred years later, in 1642, the tiny town of Ville-Marie was founded as a Sulpician mission, but soon became a centre of the fur trade. After its capture by the English in 1762, Montreal remained the most important city in Francophone Canada, and was briefly capital of the province in the 1840s.

Prohibition on sales of alcohol in the United States during the 1920s and '30s made Montreal a mecca for cross-border fun seekers from nearby New England and New York. The city built up a seedy yet playful industry in alcohol, burlesque, and other vices. In the 1960s, an urban renewal drive centred around Expo 67. The World's Fair in Montreal brought a subway system and a number of attractive urban parks, and is considered to be one of the most successful World Fairs. Over 50 million visitors gathered to Montreal during this memorable summer. The 1976 Olympics left a strikingly idiosyncratic stadium and many other urban improvements.

The opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959, though much lauded as an economic boon, spelled the beginning of the end for Montreal's economic dominance in Canada. Once the transition point between western railroads and eastern sea carriers, Montreal watched helplessly as some of this business moved farther west, up the now navigable Seaway, to ports in Ontario and on Lake Superior. The Quebec Sovereignty movement, which began to pick up steam in the 1960s, further chilled the atmosphere for Canada-wide businesses, many of which moved their headquarters to Toronto.

After an economic depression in the 1980s and 1990s — due to automotive and aerospace plant closures in the surrounding area — Montreal today has become more secure in its place in North America and the world. It remains a centre of culture, arts, computer technology, aerospace, the biotech industry and media for all of Canada and for the French-speaking world.

Get in

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By plane
Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport () (formerly Dorval Airport) is about half an hour west of the city centre on highway 20. Note that travel time to the airport from the city centre can be as much as an hour, depending on traffic. The airport is served by all major Canadian...