Montreal and it's Metropoletan Area

Montréal is located on Montréal Island in the Hochelaga Archipelago, where the Ottawa River flows into the St. Lawrence River.

The archipelago has more than 320 islands and islets dispersed along three roughly parallel main waterways: the St. Lawrence River, the Rivière des Prairies (formerly called Back River in English) and the Rivière des Mille Îles.

The boomerang-shaped Montréal Island is the largest island in the archipelago. About one-third of it is occupied by the city proper, which covers 177 sq km (68 sq mi).

The Montréal Urban Community, a regional association of 29 municipalities, extends over the whole island and a few nearby islands.

It covers a land area of 494 sq km (191 sq mi).

The metropolitan area is much larger, including other islands and spilling over to the north and south shores of the St. Lawrence River.

The metropolitan area covers a land area of 4,024 sq km (1,554 sq mi) and is divided among 102 municipalities.

The most populous suburban cities are Laval and Longueuil. More than 20 road and rail bridges link Montréal Island with surrounding communities.

Mount Royal, with three summits, rises over the city to a height of 234 m (768 ft) above sea level.

One summit is crowned with an illuminated cross.

The mountain vista is protected by a city bylaw forbidding downtown skyscrapers to rise higher than the crest.

On top of the mountain is the magnificent Mount Royal Park, comprising 215 hectares (532 acres).

Created in 1874, it was designed by famous American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

Two large adjoining cemeteries, one Roman Catholic and one Protestant, add to the beauty of the site.

The slope of the mountain is extended by a series of natural terraces going down to the river.

For centuries Montréalers have had a peculiar way of describing their island’s geography.

The direction they call north is in fact west-northwest, east is really north-northeast, and so on.

For simplicity, this description follows that usage. Most of the city streets are arranged in a grid pattern.

The major thoroughfare, St. Lawrence Boulevard (popularly known as The Main), crosses the island from south to north and was traditionally the border between Francophone (French-speaking) east Montréal and the Anglophone (English-speaking) west part.

Cross streets in the city are named and numbered as being east and west of that boulevard.

The heart of the city lies between the mountain and the St. Lawrence River.

The original site was along the river in an area now called Old Montréal.

It is the main tourist attraction of the city, containing numerous landmark buildings.

Few of them date back to the French regime (pre-1760) because fires and demolitions have taken a toll over the centuries.

Among the oldest, the Saint Sulpice Seminary (dating to the 1680s) and the Château de Ramezay (1705), now a historical museum, are fine examples of French architecture in the colonial era.

French influence lasted for a time after the British conquest of 1760, as shown by some late 18th-century houses.

British influence came to prevail, however, and most of Old Montréal is in fact a Victorian Style city, probably the largest and most interesting one in North America.

Two buildings that dominated the landscape in the mid-19th century are still visible today: the Notre Dame Basilica (1829) and the Bonsecours Market (1840s).

The basilica stands on the Place d’Armes, the city’s most historic square, whose buildings tell the story of Montréal’s institutional and commercial architecture from the 17th to the 20th centuries.

Old Montréal was saved from the cycle of demolition and reconstruction by the development of a new, modern central business district located to the northwest around Boulevard René-Lévesque.

Starting in the 1950s with the building of Place Ville-Marie, an office complex whose cross-shaped main tower is a landmark of modern architecture, numerous skyscrapers were built.

Another famous Montréal feature also began with Place Ville-Marie: the underground city.

Underground passages link office complexes, parking facilities, boutiques, and galleries with railway and subway (Métro) stations, hotels, restaurants, department stores, cultural institutions, and the convention center (Palais des Congrès).

With four distinct clusters, the underground city boasts 29 km (18 mi) of walkways.

In the heart of the central business district is Rue Sainte-Catherine (Saint Catherine Street), which is the center of Montréal’s nightlife thanks to its numerous cinemas, restaurants, and nightclubs.

In fact, unlike many North American cities, downtown Montréal is not deserted after office hours; it remains lively, attracting crowds of people.

The site of the central business district was formerly the Golden Square Mile, where the wealthiest Montréalers lived 100 years ago.

Many of their fine mansions can still be seen, especially north of Sherbrooke Street.

Farther east, Saint Lawrence Boulevard is lined with ethnic shops and restaurants testifying to successive waves of Jewish, Italian, Greek, and Portuguese immigrants.

Next to that area, the Francophone district of Plateau Mont-Royal extends for a few kilometers on both sides of Saint Denis Street, which is renowned for its restaurants, its exclusive shops, and its French-language bookstores. This is the heart of Francophone Montréal.

The streets are lined with duplexes and triplexes, many adorned with the outdoor staircases that were typical of Montréal until the 1920s.