46 Fun Facts About Toronto

Toronto's name is thought to come from the Mohawk word tkaronto, meaning what?

Trees standing in the water described fish weirs of stakes at a narrows near Orillia, far to the north; a portage trail later spread the name south.

Which Toronto musician popularised 'the 6ix' as a nickname for his city?

Drake made it famous around his 2016 album Views, though he credits rapper Jimmy Prime with coining it; the 6 nods to the 416 and 647 area codes.

Which Toronto mayor admitted in 2013 to smoking crack cocaine while in office?

Rob Ford refused to resign, and with no legal way to remove him, city council stripped him of key executive powers for the rest of his term.

US forces captured and burned York, now Toronto, during which war?

The War of 1812 brought US troops ashore at York, and the retreating British set fire to their own half-built warship so the Americans could not seize it.

After US troops burned York's parliament buildings, British forces later retaliated by burning which city?

Washington, D.C. was set ablaze in August 1814, the climax of a run of cross-border reprisals in which towns on both sides were burned.

During Toronto's Great Fire of 1904, what stopped the flames at the Kilgour Brothers factory?

Its sprinkler system blocked the fire's spread, and the disaster pushed the city to adopt tougher fire-safety rules and building codes.

Which 1954 hurricane brought flash flooding to Toronto and killed 81 people in Canada?

Hazel's floods swept homes off Raymore Drive, so Ontario let conservation authorities acquire floodplain land, and much of it became parkland.

Which of these became part of Toronto in the 1998 megacity merger?

Scarborough and the other five municipalities were dissolved into one new city under a contested plan that Ontario's government sold as a way to cut costs.

In the 2020s, which three North American cities outrank Toronto by population?

Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles are bigger, and Toronto overtook Chicago only around 2013.

In the 1920s, Toronto's Kensington Market was widely known as the market of which community?

Jewish families leaving the overcrowded Ward district turned the ground floors of their houses into shops, and the market grew from there.

Which skyscraper ended the CN Tower's reign as the world's tallest free-standing structure?

Burj Khalifa took the title, but the tower was built so tall partly because Toronto's new skyscrapers were blocking radio and TV signals.

What did 'CN' in CN Tower originally mean?

Canadian National, the railway that built it, sold the tower in 1995, and its official name was then changed to Canada's National Tower.

What is the CN Tower's EdgeWalk, opened in 2011?

A hands-free rooftop walk circles the main pod 356 metres up, and walkers can let go because each harness is clipped to an overhead rail.

Toronto's PATH, spanning more than 30 km downtown, is mostly a network of what?

Underground walkways began in 1900, when a department store dug a tunnel so shoppers could walk between its main store and its annex.

Until 1999 Guinness called which Toronto thoroughfare the world's longest, at 1,896 km?

The figure conflated Yonge with Highway 11, which ran on to the Minnesota border.

Sir Henry Pellatt lost his castle, Casa Loma, over what?

Unpaid property taxes piled up after the city sharply raised his bill, and as his fortune collapsed Pellatt auctioned off his art and furnishings.

Architect Viljo Revell wanted which sculptor's work in front of his Toronto building?

Henry Moore sold the city The Archer at a discount after councillors fought over buying it, and a fundraising drive paid instead of public funds.

Michael Snow's sculpture Flight Stop fills Toronto's Eaton Centre with what?

Canada geese hang mid-flight from the mall's ceiling, and the mall kept the Eaton's name even after the department store chain went bankrupt.

Burgess Shale fossils, collected for decades by Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, are famous for preserving what?

Soft-bodied animals rarely fossilize, and later study showed many did not fit the modern animal groups their discoverer had placed them in.

What did Toronto's first subway line replace?

Streetcars ran the route until the subway opened in 1954, after wartime commuter crowds strained Toronto's roads and transit.

What delayed Toronto's Union Station, finished in 1920, from opening until 1927?

Unready approach tracks kept it shut, and the Prince of Wales who finally cut the ribbon later abdicated as King Edward VIII.

Toronto Pearson, Canada's busiest airport, lies mainly within which neighbouring city?

Pearson began as Malton Airport, in what is now Mississauga, where the Avro Arrow jet was developed; the jet's cancellation hurt the local economy.

In the First World War, Toronto's William Davies Company was accused of what?

Profiteering charges dogged its managers until a 1917 inquiry cleared the company.

The Distillery District preserves the buildings of which whisky maker, once Canada's largest?

Gooderham and Worts began with a waterfront windmill, and since the distillery closed in 1990 its buildings have hosted more than 800 film and TV productions.

Toronto shares the nickname 'Hollywood North' with which other city?

Vancouver and Toronto both draw American film and TV shoots with Canadian tax breaks, skilled crews and studio space.

Which Toronto festival began in 1976 as the Festival of Festivals?

TIFF saw Hollywood studios pull films from its early editions, yet its 1981 People's Choice Award went to Chariots of Fire, a future Best Picture winner.

Caribana, Toronto's Caribbean carnival, was first held in 1967 to mark what?

Canada's Centennial was the occasion, but the founding committee's successor owned the Caribana trademark, so the festival dropped that name in 2011.

What happened to Toronto star Bill Barilko in summer 1951?

His plane vanished on a fishing trip, and his remains weren't found until 1962, the year Toronto next won the Stanley Cup.

Who put together the group that bought Toronto's St. Pats in 1927 and renamed the team?

Conn Smythe's purchase kept the team in Toronto at a time when a rival buyer planned to move it to Philadelphia.

In November 1946, which Toronto venue hosted the first game of the league that became the NBA?

Maple Leaf Gardens saw the Toronto Huskies lose that game to the New York Knickerbockers, and the team folded after its only season.

What did Joe Carter hit to clinch the 1993 World Series?

A home run with the Blue Jays trailing 6-5 in the ninth gave Toronto its second straight World Series title.

The Blue Jays' home, Rogers Centre, was known by what name when it opened in 1989?

SkyDome's opening ceremony rolled back its new roof into a downpour, and the soaked crowd's chants to close it went unheeded.

The Toronto Argonauts' 'double blue' came from which universities' rowing crews?

Oxford and Cambridge had the most renowned rowing crews of the day, so the Argonaut Rowing Club copied their blues and its football team kept them.

Whom did Toronto FC beat in the 2017 MLS Cup final?

Seattle had beaten Toronto on penalties in the 2016 final, and Toronto won the 2017 rematch 2-0 at BMO Field.

Which Toronto street's name is shorthand for Canada's financial industry, the way Wall Street is for America's?

Bay Street became Canada's financial shorthand as hundreds of corporate head offices moved to Toronto.

Toronto's first spell as capital of the Province of Canada followed unrest in which city?

Montreal lost the capital after a mob burned its parliament buildings in 1849, protesting a law that paid compensation for property damaged in the 1837-38 rebellions.

What distinction does the Toronto Zoo hold?

Canada's largest zoo, the Toronto Zoo also breeds endangered black-footed ferrets and has returned many to the wild.

Kensington Market was designated what in November 2006?

A National Historic Site of Canada since 2006, Kensington Market is also where, in 2021, a community land trust bought a building to stop evictions and keep its rents affordable.

What was St. Lawrence Market's South building first built as?

City hall moved out in 1899, and the building was reconstructed as a larger market with part of the old hall built into it.

Ontario Place is home to the world's first permanent what?

IMAX cinema was first shown with Tiger Child at Expo 70 in Osaka, and the Cinesphere, its first permanent home in 1971, closed with Ontario Place and reopened in 2017.

Which medical breakthrough did a University of Toronto team announce in 1922?

Insulin brought Banting and Macleod a 1923 Nobel Prize, but Banting, insisting his partner Best deserved credit, split his prize money with him.

What was the Leslie Street Spit first built to be?

A breakwater for harbour expansion was the plan, but the expected shipping never came, and the spit, built from construction debris, grew into an urban wilderness.

Who was the first mayor of Toronto after its 1834 incorporation, later leading the 1837 rebellion?

William Lyon Mackenzie fled to the US when the rising failed, proclaimed a breakaway Upper Canada on Navy Island in the Niagara River, and had to give it up after the rebels' supply ship, the Caroline, was destroyed.

Why did Simcoe move the Upper Canada capital from Newark to York in 1793?

It was less vulnerable to US attack, but York was only Simcoe's second choice: he wanted London and even renamed its river the Thames before his superior refused.

What did Mayor Mel Lastman controversially call in to clear snow in January 1999?

The Canadian Armed Forces sent soldiers after 118 cm of snow immobilized Toronto, and the call drew mockery from elsewhere in Canada.

Which Parks Canada site on Toronto's eastern edge includes working farms and a Lake Ontario beach?

Rouge National Urban Park owes much of its farmland to Ottawa's early-1970s expropriation for a Pickering airport that was never built, which kept suburbs from spreading over it.