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Montreal Fast Facts |
| Montréal is Canada's most romantic
metropolis, an island city that seems to favor grace and elegance over
order and even prosperity, a city full of music, art, and joie de
vivre. It is rather like the European capital Vienna---past its peak
of power and glory, perhaps, but still a vibrant and beautiful place
full of memories, dreams, and festivals. That's not to say Montréal is ready to fade away. It may not be so young anymore---2002 will mark its 360th birthday---but it remains Québec's largest city and an important port and financial center. Its office towers are full of young Québécois entrepreneurs, members of a new breed who are ready and eager to take on the world. The city's four universities---two English and two French---and a host of junior colleges add to that youthful zest. In fact, a 1999 study by local McGill University showed that Montréal's population had the highest proportion of students of any city in North America---3.48 per hundred, just a whisker ahead of Boston with 3.47. Montréal is the only French-speaking metropolis in North America and the second-largest French-speaking city in the world, but it's a tolerant place that over the years has made room for millions of immigrants who speak dozens of languages. Today about 15% of the 3.1 million people who live in the metropolitan area claim English as their mother tongue, and another 15% claim a language that's neither English nor French. The city's gentle acceptance has won recognition: Several times it has been voted one of the world's most livable cities. The city's grace, however, has been sorely tested. Since 1976, Montréal has endured the election (twice) of a separatist provincial government, a law banning all languages but French on virtually all public signs and billboards, and four referendums on the future of Québec and Canada. But Montréal, where most of the province's Anglophones and immigrants live, bucked the separatist trend and voted nearly 70% against independence. Founded by the French, conquered by the British, and occupied by the Americans, Montréal has a long history of reconciling contradictions and even today is a city of contrasts. |
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