ONTARIO 



4379 



ONTARIO 



Within its boundaries may be found all stages 

 of progress, from long-settled and fully-devel- 

 oped agricultural and manufacturing communi- 

 ties to the rapidly-growing towns and rural 

 communities made possible by the abundant 

 natural resources of the less densely-populated 

 parts of the province. 



Area and Population. Ontario has a total 

 area of 407262 square miles, and is the second 

 la most province of Canada, being exceeded in 

 area only by Quebec. Owing to its natural 

 boundaries, the province is very irregular in 

 outline. The eastern part is separated from 

 tlu United States on the south by the Saint 

 Lawrence River, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. 

 On the southwest are Lake Huron and Lake 

 Superior, beyond which the Rainy River with 

 its chain of lakes completes the southern 

 boundary. The western boundary extends 

 north and south to the northeast corner of the 

 old province of Manitoba; then it changes to a 

 northeasterly direction, terminating on Hudson 



OLD AND NEW ONTARIO 

 Tho solid M;i(k section represents the area of 

 the province before annexations ; the shaded por- 

 tion is the territory a<M! 



Bay, about eighty units south of the mouth 

 of the N< r. The Ottawa River forms 



a part of the boundary between Ontario and 

 Quebec. 



greatest extent of Ontario from east to 

 west is 1,000 miles, and the distance between 

 the extreme northern :m<l southern points only 

 a littl. 1 'astern end is. as far cast as 



Atlantic City, N. J., and the western boun 

 is as far west as Lawrence, Kan. The sout ! 

 point is about twenty miles south of Detroit 

 and just north of the northern boundary of 



Pennsylvania, and a line extended eastward 

 from the most northerly point would cross 

 Hudson Bay 150 miles north of the outlet of 

 James Bay. 



Ontario lacks only 17,000 square miles of be- 

 ing as large as Texas and California combined, 

 the two largest states in the Union. If com- 

 pared with the states directly south of it, its 

 area equals all of New York, Pennsylvania, 

 West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 

 Michigan and Wisconsin. It is nearly as large 

 as France and Germany together, three and 

 one-half times the size of Italy and two and 

 three-fourths times the size of Japan. 



Old and New Ontario. That portion south 

 of the Albany River constitutes the original 

 province, and is known as Old Ontario. Its 

 area, 260,862 square miles, was about equal to 

 that of Texas. In 1912 the region lying be- 

 tween the Albany River and the present north- 

 ern boundary, or New Ontario, was added from 

 the district of Keewatin, the remainder of that 

 district being added to Manitoba. 



The People. The census of 1911 gave On- 

 tario a population of 2,523,274, which was about 

 three-fifths of the entire population of the 

 Dominion. Nine-tenths of the people live in 

 less than one-tenth of the area, the region be- 

 tween the Ottawa River, Lake Huron and Geor- 

 gian Bay. A large majority of the people are 

 of English, Scotch and Irish descent. Many of 

 the original English settlers came from the 

 United States at the close of the Revolutionary 

 War because they preferred to live under the 

 British government. The early Scotch and 

 Irish families were immigrants from the mother 

 country. 



A number of other nationalities are found in 

 New Ontario, and since the beginning of tin- 

 present century 

 the percentage of 

 foreign-born in- 

 habitants has 

 greatly increased 

 in the larger 

 particularly 

 in Ottawa, To- 

 ronto and Hamil- 

 ton . There are 

 about 21,000 In- 

 dia us. some of 

 l,om naidc on ROK>NS o, -..NTAUIO 



tnte islands in Georgian Bay. Only the south- 

 part of the province is densely populated. 

 Ontario has the largest proportion of urban 

 population of any of the provinces, ov, r fifty- 



