A Place to be There's no other in the world quite like Montreal!
downtown montreal
About 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 9th-largest in North America. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. The city is 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.
In 2011 the city had a population of 1,649,519.[6] Montreal's metropolitan area (CMA) (land area 4,259 square kilometres (1,644 sq mi)) had a population of 3,824,221 and a population of 1,886,481 in the urban agglomeration, all of the municipalities on the Island of Montreal included. Current 2014 estimates of the CMA place the metropolitan area of Montreal at 4.1 million.
French is the city's official language and is the language spoken at home by 56.9% of the population of the city, followed by English at 18.6% and 19.8% other languages (in the 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. Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada with 56% of the population able to speak both English and French. Montreal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.
Montréal has beautiful neighbourhoods and a range of architectural styles, such as Italianate or the Second Empire, among many others, and Montréal freely accepts artistic fresco paintings on exterior walls and indeed has public art everywhere. It was also a fair-sized city before the car was invented, making it very walkable and well put-together, with tree-lined streets for shade, street furniture and little parks and sidewalk cafés for taking a break, well-connected shopping streets, and an excellent transit system that all make it easy to explore. Compared to most cities in the world, Montréal is a standout for cleanliness, with regular street washing and people sweeping the streets in popular areas and vacuum carts removing litter all day. While it is true you might see some urban grittiness and panhandlers in Montréal, especially since the "bad" part of town is sandwiched between other areas of interest to a tourist, it remains a very safe city, safer than U.S. cities of comparable (and smaller) size. As with any city, street smarts still apply, and don't leave your belongings unattended and lock your car and don't leave anything of value in view.
Montréal is also an easy city to visit with the highest number of bilingual (and indeed, trilingual) people in Canada, meaning you won't need your dictionary unless you're well off the beaten path. Traditionally, Montréal has been French in the east and English in the west, although the lines are blurred now.
Montréal is famous for many things, from Montréal-style bagels and smoked meat, tam tams on the mountain, an extensive system of underground passageways, many festivals including the Just for Laughs and the International Jazz Festival and a weekly fireworks competition in summer, and the Cirque du Soleil. It is also a city of learning, with more university students per capita than even Boston.
Tourists come to Montréal in La Belle Province (Quebec) to escape their usual routine. Tourists are from the U.S., elsewhere in Canada, from Europe or are other world globetrotters, Montréal is truly unique in North America. Its architecture, sense of fashion, superb cuisine and unique culture make Montréal a favoured destination.
Climate Montreal lies in a transition between the warm-summer and hot-summer humid continental climate zones (: Köppen climate classificationDfa/Dfb because of the mean temperature in July being just below 22 °C (72 °F))
Summers are, on the whole, warm and humid with a daily maximum average of 26 to 27 °C (79 to 81 °F) in July; temperatures in excess of 30 °C (86 °F) are common. Conversely, cold fronts can bring crisp, drier and windy weather in the early and later parts of summer.
Winter brings cold, snowy, windy, and, at times, icy weather, with a daily average ranging from −9 to −10.5 °C (16 to 13 °F) in January. However, some winter days rise above freezing, allowing for rain on an average of 4 days in January and February each. Usually, snow covering some or all bare ground lasts on average from the first or second week of December until the last week of March.
While the air temperature does not fall below −30 °C (−22 °F) every year, the often makes the temperature feel this low to exposed skin.
Spring and fall are pleasantly mild but prone to drastic temperature changes; spring even more so than fall. Late season heat waves as well as "" are possible. Early and late season snow storms can occur in November and March, and more rarely in April. Montreal is generally snow free from April 15 to November 15.