Toronto Canada Facts

CN Tower - Canada's Wonder of The World

CN Tower Logo

Defining the Toronto skyline, CN Tower is Canada's most recognizable and celebrated icon.

With a population of about 5 million, Toronto is a bustling, cosmopolitan city. It is the business center of Canada and also shares many recreational and cultural facilities with millions of visitors each year. Toronto is also the Canadian center for education, technology, entertainment, and industry. Toronto is located on Lake Ontario, the 8th largest freshwater lake in the world, and has over 1,500 parks, including sports parks, trails, recreation centers and botanical gardens & conservatories.

The climate in Toronto is not as cold as most people think. The city is at the same latitude as the French Riviera and is only one degree north of Boston. Because of its proximity to Lake Ontario, the temperatures are the most mild of anywhere in Canada. Spring and summer highs range from 59-77 degrees Fahrenheit (15-25 degrees Celsius), and in January the temperature is only slightly below freezing. It is rare for snow to be any deeper than four inches, but snowfall in the many city parks makes for ideal cross country skiing.

English-Canadian is the official language in Toronto, but over 100 other languages are also spoken by immigrant minorities. Toronto has one of the most ethnically-diverse populations in the world and includes Italians, French, Croatians, Portuguese and Chinese to name a few.

Toronto has a very developed and modern transportation system. It has 10,033 streets, 20,371 intersections, 1,773 traffic signals, and 158,898 streetlights! That's a big map to fold!

Toronto is also home to....

• the world's tallest free-standing structure, the CN Tower, at 1,748 feet (553 meters) tall.
• the world's longest street; Yonge Street is 1,178 miles (1896 kilometers) long.
• North America's only true castle; completed in 1914, historic Casa Loma Castle has 98 rooms and secret passageways and sits atop a hill overlooking the city.
• For a city of its size, Toronto is also very safe. It has been rated as the safest large metro area in North America by Places Rated Almanac.

In May 1893, William Neilson sold Toronto's first commercial batch of ice cream. By the beginning of World War II, Neilson's factory was churning out over 1 million gallons of ice cream per year! Today, his 5-story red brick factory still stands on Gladstone Street, and is still in active production for Cadbury Chocolate Canada Incorporated.