86 Interesting Facts About Ontario

Ontario is one of Canada’s most significant cultural, historical, and political centres, with 2 out of 5 Canadians hailing from the province.  

Below we’ll explore many things, people, and places that Ontario is famous for, with these general, random, and historical facts about Ontario. Also see these facts about Toronto and facts about Ottawa, two of the province’s main cities.

General Ontario Facts

• Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada.

• It is the westernmost province of Eastern Canada, along with Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island.

• Ontario is sometimes also classified as Central Canada, along with Québec, given these two provinces’ historical importance in Canada, not to mention their considerable size and population.

• Ontario is bordered by Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, Québec to the east, and the US states of Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York state to the south.

• Ontario’s border with the US almost entirely follows waterways, including 4 of the 5 Great Lakes (Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario). These are the world’s 1^st, 3^rd, 10^th, and 12^th largest freshwater lakes, respectively. (The Caspian Sea is sometimes cited as 1^st, but it is a saltwater body).

• Ontario is also the starting point of the Saint Lawrence River, the largest in Canada by drainage volume, which flows from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic.

• Ontario occupies 1,076,395 km² (415,598 mi²), making it the second largest province (after Québec), or 4^th largest if Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are considered.

• Ontario is similar in size to Egypt. If it were a country, it would be the 28^th largest one in the world.    

• Ontario has a population of 14.9 million, making it the most populous in Canada.

• 39% of all Canadians live in Ontario.

• 95% of Ontario’s population live in Southern Ontario, which occupies only 13% of the province’s total land.

• Ontario has more First Nations people than any other province or territory (around 375,000), but they only make up around 3% of the province’s population. They mainly include Algonquian speakers (Cree, Ojibwa, and more) and Iroquois speakers (Mohawk, Oneida, and more.)

• The capital city of Canada, Ottawa, is in Ontario. It is in the province’s far east, very close to Montréal in neighbouring Québec. It is the 6^th largest city in Canada by population (the figure includes residents of Gatineau on the other side of the Ottawa River in Québec).

• Toronto, Canada’s largest city by population (2.7 million in the city proper, or 6.9 million in the metropolitan area) is also in Ontario. It sits on the shore of Lake Ontario. Toronto is the capital city of the province of Ontario.

• The Canadian side of Niagara Falls, including the city which takes its name, is also in Ontario. The waterfall is on the Niagara River between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, opposite the city of Niagara Falls, New York.

• The name Ontario likely comes from the Huron word Ontarí:io, meaning “great lake”, or the Iroquois word skanadario, meaning “beautiful/sparkling water.”

• Ontario’s flag is England’s Red Ensign, defaced with Ontario’s coat of arms in the fly. The coat of arms features three gold maple leaves on a green background, below St. George’s Cross.

• The loon is the official bird of Ontario. It appears on the CAD $1 coin, hence the coin’s nickname, the “loonie.”

• Ontario license plates have the slogan “Yours to Discover”. The Ontario government tried to replace them with “A Place to Grow”, after the unofficial provincial anthem A Place to Stand, a Place to Grow, in 2019-2020, but it didn’t last. The first slogan, from 1973 to 1982, was “Keep it Beautiful.”   

• People from Ontario are called Ontarians.

• 70% of Ontarians speak English as a first language, while 4.6% of them identify as francophones.

• Over a quarter of Ontarians are visible minorities.

Random Interesting Facts About Ontario

• Ontario has 135 cities and other places named after ones in England. These include Cambridge, Oxford, London, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Bath, Windsor, Hamilton, Kingston, Sudbury, and York.

• Ontario spans two time zones: Central and Eastern. They observe daylight savings time, but there is current discussion about getting rid of the practice.

• There is only 1 km (0.6 mi) in total of land borders between Ontario and the United States. They can be portaged with a canoe.

• There are around 250,000 lakes in Ontario, accounting for 20% of the world’s freshwater. Around 15% of the province’s land is covered with water.

• 80% of Ontario’s drinking water comes from the Great Lakes.

• 40% of Ontario’s power comes from hydroelectricity. There are over 240 hydroelectric dams in the province.

• Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay is the largest lake island in the world, at 2766 km² (1068 mi²), around half the size of Prince Edward Island.  

• There are around 50,00 farms in Ontario, around ¼ of all farms in Canada.

• Most of Northern Ontario is sparsely populated. It consists of Canadian Shield (a rocky landscape covered in Boreal forest) and swampy lowlands adjacent to Hudson’s Bay.

• The landscapes of Northern Ontario inspired the Group of Seven, some of the most important painters in Canadian history.

• There are no mountains in Ontario; the highest point is only 693 m (2274 ft) above sea level.

• Ontario is home to five national parks: Pukaskwa, Bruce Peninsula, Georgian Bay Islands, Point Pelee, and Thousand Islands National Parks. All five are on the Great Lakes or Saint Lawrence River.

• Georgian Bay Islands, Point Pelee, and Thousand Islands are the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd smallest national parks in Canada, at 14, 15, and 24 km² (5, 6, 9 mi²), respectively.

• Point Pelee is the southernmost point on mainland Canada. It is a point of land poking into Lake Erie, across from Cleveland, Ohio. It is further south than the northern border of California.

• Ontario also contains Canada’s only National Urban Park (Rouge National Urban Park in Toronto) and 45 provincial parks (compared to 450 in Alberta 1000 in British Columbia).

• Ontario contains 2 UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Rideau Canal (North America’s oldest canal, which becomes a skating rink in winter), and Pimachiowin Aki, which is shared with Manitoba.

• Ontario has 274 National Historic Sites, more than any other province.

• Niagara Falls is part of the rocky Niagara Escarpment, which has been formed by erosion over millions of years and is a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.

• Ontario received around 13 million international visits in 2019, more than any province, and about 40% of the total visits to Canada.

• Ontario has the largest economy in Canada, with nearly double the GDP of the second spot, Québec. It is the country’s largest manufacturing and trade hub.

• Over half of manufacturing shipments from Canada depart from Ontario, with the largest trading partner being Michigan in the US.

• Toronto’s Pearson International Airport is the busiest airport in Canada, handling around 50 million passengers per year before COVID.

• The Ontario Highway 410, which runs from Windsor, Ontario to the Ontario-Québec border via Toronto, is the busiest highway in North America.

• Ontario once made over 2 million cars per year, but that number has decreased to around 1.3 million in the last few years.

• Ontario has the highest cost of living in Canada (along with BC). The average cost of a house in Toronto is CAD $1.3 million.

• Ontario is Canada’s largest wine producer, making 2/3^rd of the country’s wines. Over 90% of Canada’s icewine is made in Ontario.

• The University of Toronto is considered the best university in Canada, and is consistently ranked as one of the top-10 in the world.

• Professional sports teams in Ontario include the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL), Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Ottawa Redblacks, and Toronto Argonauts (CFL), the Toronto Raptors (NBA), and the Toronto Blue Jays (MLB).

• 7 of Canada’s 23 prime ministers have been born in Ontario, including the current Justin Trudeau.

• Famous people from Ontario include poet Margaret Atwood, actors Jim Carrey, Dan Akroyd, Mike Meyers, and Jon Candy, actresses Neve Campbell and Rachel McAdams, game show host Alex Trebek, comedians Tom Green and Phil Hartman, hockey commentator Don Cherry, and astronaut Chris Hadfield.

• Famous athletes born in Ontario include hockey player Wayne Gretzky (who achieved fame in Edmonton), footballer Russ Jackson, baseball pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, basketball player Rick Fox, and swimmer Penny Oleksiak.

• Some of the most well-known bands and musicians from Ontario are Justin Bieber, Drake, Bryan Adams, Neil Young, The Tragically Hip, Nelly Furtado, Alanis Morissette, Paul Anka, Alexisonfire, Barenaked Ladies, Blue Rodeo, Avril Lavigne, Gordon Lightfoot, Kim Mitchell, Our Lady Peace, Peaches, Rush, Paul Shaffer, Snow, and Sum 41.

• Much (formerly MuchMusic), Canada’s version of MTV, is based in Toronto, Ontario.

• Famous restaurants and cafés that started in Ontario include East Side Mario’s, Second Cup, St. Louis Bar & Grill, and Pita Pit.

• The Ontarian hockey player Tim Horton lends his name to Canada’s most famous doughnut chain, Tim Hortons, which started in Hamilton, Ontario.

• Beaver Tails, which have become a quintessential Canadian treat, started in Ottawa, Ontario.

• Ontario has the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th largest malls in Canada (only West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta is larger).

• Ontario also has the largest amusement park in Canada, Canada’s Wonderland.

Ontario History Facts

• Ontario has some of the oldest rocks on Earth, dating to the Precambrian period.

• First Nations have lived in Ontario for at least 12,000 years, with the main groups before European contact being Algonquian and Iroquois.

• The French explorer Étienne Brûlé was the first to reach southern Ontario in 1610, followed a few years later by Samuel de Champlain, who later founded Québec/New France.

• Meanwhile, Henry Hudson reached Northern Ontario in the bay now named after him in 1611.

• French Jesuit settlers allied with the Huron people, while the English allied with the Iroquois, coming into conflict with each other.

• The French built some of the earliest European settlements in Ontario, including Petite Côte, also called Old Sandwich Town, in the mid to late-1700s.

• When the Seven Years’ War ended with the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the English acquired most of France’s territory in North America, including Ontario.

• The first English settlements in Ontario were created by Loyalists from the American Revolution, starting in 1782. After that, England started heavily encouraging immigration to the area.

• In 1791, Canada was split into Lower Canada (Québec) and Upper Canada (Ontario). It was called “Upper” because it was upstream on the Saint Lawrence River.

• As a colony of England, Canada got swept up in the War of 1812 between the US and England. Several of the war’s battles took place in Upper Canada.

• The University of Toronto was established in 1827, making it the oldest in Ontario.

• In 1840, Upper and Lower Canada were unified into the Province of Canada, with its capital at Kington, Ontario (a few years later it moved to Montréal). This was done in part to try to assimilate the French.

• Immigration from England was strongly encouraged, and within 10 years, the population of English in Canada exceeded that of the French.

• In the 1850s, a boom in Canada saw the construction of major railways in Ontario.

• In 1857, the capital of the Province of Canada was moved from Montréal to Ottawa.

• In 1867, the Dominion of Canada was established, a process known as the Canadian Confederation, with four provinces: Ontario, Québec (mainly for the French speakers), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and with Ottawa as its capital.

• Ontario’s borders would be expanded in 1876, 1880, 1889, and finally reaching their present extent in 1912.

• From 1912 to 1927, Ontario enacted Regulation 17, which sought to strictly limit French use in schools in Ontario.

• Ontario suffered under the Great Depression, but prospered in the decades following WWII.

• The Ontario Progressive Conservative Party led the province from 1943 to 1985, while the NDP had a surprise win in 1990.

• In 1976, the CN Tower in Toronto was completed. At 553.3 m (1815.3 ft), it was the world’s tallest structure until 2007, when the Burj Khalifa was built in Dubai, UAE.  

• In 1979, a train derailment in Mississauga caused the largest non-war evacuation in North America until Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Louisiana.

• In 2003, over 40 died in Ontario during a SARS outbreak.

• In 2020 and again in 2021, Ontario Premier Doug Ford called a state of emergency due to COVID-19.

• In summer and again in late 2022, Toronto Pearson Airport gained a reputation as a “nightmare for travelers”, with thousands of lost bags and delayed/canceled flights for weeks on end.