Toronto, Ontario

Toronto, Ontario is the largest city in Canada, and is the Capital of the Province of Ontario. Its precursor was York, Upper Canada, the Capital of the Province of Upper Canada. In 1834 the city changed its name from York, to Toronto.

In 1813, during the War of 1812, American invaders succeeded in a maritime attack on York, and occupying it with a much larger force than York's garrison. They sabotaged Fort York's magazine, killing a large number of American's including the commanding officer of the ground forces, Zebulon Pike. In return the American invaders retaliated with a rampage of destruction, that included burning all the public buildings, including the Provincial Legislature.

The British occupation of Washington DC, and the burning of public buildings in Washington, including The White House, was in retaliation for American destruction of York.

In the late twentieth Century, and in the twenty-first Century, Toronto's population of just over two million is dwarfed by the satellite cities that surround it in the informal Greater Toronto Area. Around 2010 the official population of official Toronto exceeded the official population of official Chicago, and some Torontonians congratulated themselves that Toronto had become the fourth largest city in North America, after Mexico City, New York City and Los Angeles, even though the Greater Chicago Area remains larger than the Greater Toronto Area.

Two differences between Toronto and large American cities are that Toronto stopped tearing up downtown communities to build expressways, in the 1970s, and Toronto is more richly served by public transit than American cities. Toronto was one of five North American cities to preserve a streetcar network, and with a dozen streetcar routes, and 264 vehicles, it still has the largest streetcar network, in North America.