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Welcome to Toronto: The Scoop.
Toronto (a.k.a. T.O., The T-Dot and the Live Music Capital of Canada) is one of the coolest places to live, which also makes it one of the coolest places to visit.
With over 8,000 restaurants, 1,000 festivals and events, 90 venues and theatres, 125 museums, 6 major sports teams, 35,000 hotel rooms, 8,000 acres (18.1% of total area) of parklands, 8 islands and 200 monuments, why would you want to go anywhere else?
Although Toronto seems big at 5,900 km2, the fifth largest metropolis in North America, we’re actually a city of neighbourhoods. From the Lakeside Beaches to the boho Annex to ritzy Rosedale, Little India, Little Italy, Little Portugal, Greektown, Cabbagetown, Koreatown, Chinatown – you’ll never be lost for something to do or discover. Toronto is the most multicultural city in the world with its 5.3 million residents speaking up to 128 languages, and with all this diversity there’s no better way to explore the city than by eating your way around the globe.
Beyond food, we’ve got a little bit of everything for everyone. We’ve been called everything from Muddy York to Toronto the Good, but to most Torontonians, we’re just F**king great.
Officially, we became a city as of 1834 but we really hit our stride in the 1970’s and have quickly grown to become a leader in business, festivals, greenness, sports, arts, culture & entertainment and technology.
The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) is North America’s third largest, seventh in the world and Toronto is the third largest financial sector in North America employing 205,000.
We have more than 76,000 businesses based in Toronto and the city accounts for 11 % of Canada’s GDP, roughly $120 billion annually.
Toronto is home to over 40 film festivals, including the world’s largest film festival, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). We host the biggest Caribbean festival outside of Jamaica and one of the top three Pride festivals in the world.
North by Northeast is the largest of many music festivals that fill the city with song throughout the summer in addition to the dozen of festivals that celebrate our myriad of vibrant neighbourhoods.
Toronto is a great metropolis but we are also privileged to have over 250 municipally maintained parks, 307 km of rivers, a massive public beach and 3 million publicly owned trees. We are one of the cleanest cities in North America as well as one of the most proactive in becoming ‘green’ with the introduction of municipal composting, green roof by-laws and the use of wind-farm energy.
Torontonians are die-hard Maple Leafs fans, supporting their Hockey team through good times and bad, but we’ll also spill our beers and the occasional tear over the Blue Jays (Baseball), Raptors (B-Ball), Argos (Canadian Football), TFC: Toronto Football Club (Soccer) and the Rock (Lacrosse).
It’s no wonder Toronto is a hub of arts, culture and entertainment with more art schools than any other city in North America, over 50 ballet and dance companies, six opera companies and two symphony orchestras. We are also home to hundreds of galleries including the Art Gallery of Ontario, recently re-vamped by architect Frank Gehry, who we also claim as a Torontonian.
At any given day there are up to 40 productions filming in Toronto employing up to 28,000 individuals. That’s not surprising, considering Toronto’s the third largest in T.V. and film production and second largest in programming exports in North America and is termed by industry folk as Hollywood North.
Toronto boasts the first stadium with a fully retractable roof and the first IMAX. We have the most fibre optic cable of any city in North America and are situated in the largest flat rate calling area in the world, which I think is a good thing but is probably the reason we banned texting and driving.
We have the second largest public transit system after New York with users taking over 1.5 million trips a day and 7,100 km of sidewalks trafficked by friendly Torontonians willing to give you directions and let you know where to get the best street eats, especially now that we’ve allowed more than just hot dogs.
Now all of this might seem like bragging and to some degree it is, but we’ve got a lot to be proud of. And Torontonians are definitely proud. We love to talk about our city and neighbourhoods. We’ll give you the scoop of our favourite, eats, streets, pubs, shops and parks, but we’ll also give the low-down on where not to go. We’re not shy nor are we modest, but we’re fun, eclectic, multicultural and nice. (We had to add that last one or Canada would kick us out.)
