Montreal

Montreal is a city in the Canadian province of Quebec. It is the largest city in the province, the second-largest in Canada and the fifteenth-largest in North America. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city. The city is located on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard.

As of 2011, the city of Montreal had a population of 1,649,519. Montreal's metropolitan area had a population of 3,824,221and a population of 1,886,481 in the urban agglomeration of Montreal, all of the municipalities on the Island of Montreal included.

French is the city's official language and is also the language spoken at home as Québécois French by 56.9% of the population in the city of Montreal proper, followed by English at 18.6% and 19.8% other languages (as of 2006 census). In the larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 67.9% of the population speaks French at home, compared to 16.5% who speak English. 56% of the population are able to speak both English and French, making Montreal one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada. Montreal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.
Montreal was named a UNESCO City of Design. Historically the commercial capital of Canada, it was surpassed in population and economic strength by Toronto in the 1970s. Today it remains an important centre of commerce, aerospace, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology, design, culture, tourism, gaming, film and world affairs.

In 2009, Montreal was named North America's leading host city for international association events, according to the 2009 preliminary rankings of the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA). In 2012, QS World University Rankings ranked Montreal the 10th-best place in the world to be a university student.

Montreal scenic spot

Place Jacques-Cartier is a square located in Old Montreal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and an entrance to the Old Port of Montreal.

It is a car-free zone in the summer. During the summer season, Jardin Nelson offers a garden restaurant on Place Jacques-Cartier. Other restaurants similarly offer classical Parisian-style "terraces" for taking a drink or dining in the open air.

Near Place Jacques-Cartier on rue de la Commune, an original piece of the wall of the old fortified city can still be seen in the basement restaurant of the Auberge du Vieux-Port. At the upper end of the Place stands Nelson's Column, built in memory of Admiral Horatio Nelson. The statue was removed in 1997 to preserve it from the weather, and was subsequently replaced with a copy.Near Place Jacques-Cartier on rue de la Commune, an original piece of the wall of the old fortified city can still be seen in the basement restaurant of the Auberge du Vieux-Port. At the upper end of the Place stands Nelson's Column, built in memory of Admiral Horatio Nelson. The statue was removed in 1997 to preserve it from the weather, and was subsequently replaced with a copy.

The Old Port of Montreal is the historic port of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Located in Old Montreal, it stretches for over two kilometres along the St-Lawrence River in Old Montreal. It was used as early as 1611, when French fur traders used it as a trading post.

In 1976, Montreal's Port activities were moved east to the present Port of Montreal in the borough of Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

The Old Port was redeveloped in the early 1990s, under the direction of architects Aurèle Cardinal and Peter Rose. It is today a recreational and historical area and draws six milliontourists annually.

Notre-Dame Basilica (French: Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal) is a basilica in the historic district of Old Montreal, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The church is located at 110 Notre-Dame Street West, at the corner of Saint Sulpice Street. It is located next to the Saint-Sulpice Seminary and faces the Place d'Armes square.

The church's Gothic Revival architecture is among the most dramatic in the world; its interior is grand and colourful, its ceiling is coloured deep blue and decorated with golden stars, and the rest of the sanctuary is a polychrome of blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold. It is filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. Unusual for a church, the stained glass windows along the walls of the sanctuary do not depict biblical scenes, but rather scenes from the religious history of Montreal. It also has a Casavant Frères pipe organ, dated 1891, which comprises four keyboards, 92 stops using electropneumatic action and an adjustable combination system, 7000 individual pipes and a pedal board.

Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal, (French: Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal), is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and national shrine on Westmount Summit in Montreal,Quebec. It is Canada's largest church.

In 1904, Saint André Bessette, C.S.C., began the construction of St. Joseph, a small chapel on the slopes of Mont Royal near Notre Dame College. Soon the growing number of the congregation made it too small. In 1917 a larger church was completed that had a seating capacity of 1,000. In 1924, the construction of the basilica of Saint Joseph's Oratory was commenced; it was finally completed in 1967.

Father Paul Bellot, an architect, completed the dome of Saint Joseph's Oratory between 1937-39. The dome is the third-largest of its kind in the world after the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro in Côte d'Ivoire and Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.Between 1949-51, architect Gilbert Moreau carried out alterations and improvements to the interior of Saint Joseph's Oratory, as well as to the adjacent monastery, and rearranged the sacristy in the basilica.

Montreal's Underground City is the set of interconnected complexes (both above and below ground) in and around Downtown Montreal,Quebec, Canada. It is also known as the indoor city and is one of the largest underground complexes in the world.

Not all portions of the indoor city are underground. The connections are considered tunnels architecturally and technically but are air conditioned and have lighting as good as any building's liveable space does. Many tunnels are large enough to have shops on both sides of the passage. With over 32 km of tunnels spread over more than 12 km2 , connected areas include shopping malls, apartment buildings, hotels, condominiums, banks, offices, museums, universities, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, a regional bus terminal and the Bell Centre amphitheatre and arena. There are more than 120 exterior access points to the underground city. Each access point is an entry point to one of 60 residential or commercial complexes comprising 3.6 km2 of floor space, including 80% of all office space and 35% of all commercial space in downtown Montreal. In winter, some 500,000 people use the underground city every day.

The Casino de Montréal is a casino located on the Île Notre-Dame in Montreal, Quebec. It is the largest casino in Canada, The casino is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to patrons aged 18 and older. It opened October 9, 1993.The casino consists of three interconnected buildings. Two of these, the French Pavilion and the Québec Pavilion, were built for Expo 67. The third is an annex built by the casino. The main building has six floors, in addition to the annex and the secondary building (with four floors). Within the three structures there are over 3200 slot machines, over 115 gaming tables, Keno facilities, and large number of speed lotteries and virtual games. The casino also contains four restaurants, three bars, a cabaret, and meeting and banquet facilities. The casino is famous for its unconventional features,such as its numerous windows and low ceilings.

The Olympic Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada built as the main venue for the 1976 Summer Olympics. The stadium is nicknamed "The Big O", a reference to both its name and to the doughnut-shape of the permanent component of the stadium's roof; "The Big Owe" name has also been used to reference the astronomical cost of the stadium and the 1976 Olympics as a whole.

The stadium is the largest by seating capacity in Canada. After the Olympics, it became the home of Montreal's professional baseball and Canadian football teams. Since 2004, when the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington, D.C., the stadium has no main tenant, and with a history of financial and structural problems, is largely seen as a white elephant. It currently serves as a 65,255 seat multipurpose facility for special events (e.g. concerts, trade shows), and continues to serve as a venue for playoff and Grey Cup games hosted by theMontreal Alouettes. The Montreal Impact also use the stadium on occasion when a larger capacity venue is needed or when the weather restricts outdoor play in the spring months.

The Montreal Botanical Garden (French: Jardin botanique de Montréal) is a large botanical garden in Montreal, Quebec, Canada comprising 75 hectares (190 acres) of thematic gardens and greenhouses. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2008 as it is considered to be one of the most important botanical gardens in the world due to the extent of its collections and facilities.