Immigration is a huge population growth force in Ontario as it has been over the last two centuries, in relation to natural increase or inter-provincial migration.
The British North America Act took effect on July 1, 1867, establishing the Dominion of Canada, initially with four provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario.
The Ontario origins of Massey-Ferguson Ltd., once one of the largest farm implement manufacturers in the world, indicate the importance agriculture once had to the Ontario economy.
From a largely ethnically British province, Ontario has rapidly become quite culturally diverse.
The 2006 census counted 12,160,282 residents in Ontario, which accounted for 38.5 percent of the national population.
Lake of the Woods occupies parts of Ontario and Manitoba and the U.S. state of Minnesota.
Northern Ontario occupies roughly 85 percent of the surface area of the province; conversely, southern Ontario contains 94 percent of the population.
Ontario is a province located in the east-central part of Canada, the largest by population and second largest (after Quebec) in total area.
Mining and the forest products industry, notably pulp and paper, are vital to the economy of northern Ontario.
The northernmost parts of Ontario have a subarctic climate with long, very cold winters and short, warm summers and dramatic temperature changes from time to time.
Most of these colleges were founded in the 1960s, after Ontario's then Minister of Education, William Grenville Davis, announced a plan to create a post-secondary educational system different from that of universities.
The province takes its name from Lake Ontario, which is thought to be derived from ontarн:io, a Huron word meaning "great lake," or possibly skanadario which means "beautiful water" in Iroquoian.
Ontario has two types of publicly funded community colleges: Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology and Institutes of Technology and Advanced Learning.
Ontario Northland provides rail service to destinations as far north as Moosonee near James Bay.
Slightly less than 5 percent of the population of Ontario is Franco-Ontarian, that is those whose native tongue is French, although those with French ancestry account for 11 percent of the population.
Point Pelee National Park is a peninsula in southwestern Ontario (near Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan) that extends into Lake Erie and is the southernmost extent of Canada's mainland.
California-based Better Place will build an electric car demonstration and education center in Toronto to lay the groundwork to help get electric vehicles running on Ontario roads.
Ontario has no official language, but English is considered the de facto language.
Urban sprawl and farmland severances (authorized separations into smaller adjoining properties) contribute to the loss of thousands of acres of productive agricultural land in Ontario each year.
The more northern parts of southern Ontario, all of central and eastern Ontario, and the southern parts of northern Ontario have a more severe humid continental climate.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is the tenth largest art museum in North America, home to more than 40,000 works representing almost 2,000 years of art.
Southern Ontario's limited supply of agricultural land is going out of production at an increasing rate.
Ontario is known as the province that offers the strongest support for the Liberal Party of Canada.
The regions most prone to severe weather are southwestern and central Ontario.
Both Quebec and Ontario were required to safeguard existing educational rights and privileges of their Protestant and Catholic minorities.
Ontario has traditionally operated under a three-party system.
The highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 m above sea level, located in northeastern Ontario.
The Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern section; its northern extent is part of the Greater Toronto Area at the western end of Lake Ontario.
The Province of Canada was divided at this point into Ontario and Quebec so that each linguistic group would have its own province.
Ontario's numerous waterways aided travel into the interior and supplied water power for development.
Most of Ontario's major transportation infrastructure is oriented east-west and roughly follows one of these two original routes.
The capital of Ontario is Toronto, the largest city in Canada.
Depressed economic conditions in the Maritime Provinces also resulted in depopulation of those provinces in the twentieth century, with heavy migration into Ontario.
The majority of the party's present 106 seats in the Canadian House of Commons represent Ontario ridings.
Ontario's rivers, including its share of the Niagara River, make it rich in hydroelectric energy.
By the end of the century, Ontario vied with Quebec as the nation's leader in terms of growth in population, industry, arts, and communications.
The British established trading posts on Hudson Bay in the late seventeenth century and began a struggle for domination of Ontario.
Most of southwestern Ontario has a moderate humid continental climate, similar to that of the inland Mid-Atlantic States and the lower Great Lakes portion of the U.S. Midwest.
Northern Ontario offers the visitor lakes and rivers, the boreal forest, mountains and hills, skiing, snowshoeing, hiking trails, and other outdoor pursuits.
Once constituted as a province, Ontario proceeded to assert its economic and legislative power.
Ontario is Canada's leading manufacturing province, accounting for 52 percent of total national manufacturing shipments in 2004.
The nationalist movement in Quebec, particularly after the election of the Parti Quйbйcois in 1976, contributed to driving many businesses and English-speaking people out of Quebec into Ontario.
Toronto, the capital of Ontario, is the center of Canada's financial services and banking industry.
The Americans gained control of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, however, and during the Battle of York occupied the town of York (later named Toronto) in 1813.
Along with New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Quebec, Ontario is one of the four original provinces of Canada when the nation was formed on July 1, 1867, by the British North America Act.
The motor vehicle industry would go on to become the most lucrative industry for the Ontario economy.
The Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario.
The biggest contributing factor is increased globalization, particularly increased manufacturing from China and India, which has led to the de-industrialization of Ontario and the gradual shift to a dominant service-oriented economy.
Toronto was formally established as Ontario's provincial capital at this time.
Both Quebec and Ontario were required to safeguard existing educational rights and privileges of their Protestant and Catholic minorities.