Why So Many Canadians Live In This Tiny Area: The Golden Horseshoe 

The fact that Canada doesn't have High Speed Rail between Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City is astounding. They are almost on a straight line.

It's so weird that some countries have buildings with almost as many people as Nunavut which is 5 times bigger than France. The population distribution of Canada makes it a really deceiving country when looking at it on a map.

As a longtime resident in this area, I enjoyed your pronunciation of some of our regional municipalities.😂

In Detroit you drive south to get to Canada

I visited Canada specifically Niagara falls and Toronto. Driving from NF to Toronto I noticed how populated the whole region actually is. In the QEW the traffic was heavy for the entire 80+ miles. Then arriving Toronto is another big traffic jam lol.

I grew up in the Golden Horseshoe back in the day and there were so many high-paying factory jobs they had a hard time keeping young guys in school. Many would quit at 16, take a factory job, buy a Mustang and get all the high-school girls (drats). Also, back then you could stay at a factory job your whole working life and retire with a decent pension.

Back when I lived in NY I spent a lot of time exploring the Golden Horseshoe region. The view of the Niagara Escarpment is always impressive from the QEW.

What is stunning to me, who grew up in the Syracuse area, is the great affluence of the Golden Horseshoe area compared to the long-declining and depressed Upstate NY rust belt. Literally a short drive “right around the lake.” A consequence of NY long being dominated by “downstate” NYC politicians and corruption, but stunning nonetheless as one drives and experiences it.

I'm a Yank from west Lake Erie who has spent a ton of time in the area and you forgot the Tomato Capital of Canada, Leamington. If you stay away from Toronto, the people of this area are fantastic and it is a wonderful destination. And, I say this as one who has travelled from coast to coast of Canada. Good job!

To be clear, a lot of it has to do with the soil up north being too thin, and the growing season too short to sustain agriculture. As the glaciers pushed south, they scraped away a lot of the topsoil toward the south. You can't viably have much settlement without food.

I must call out a big mistake here: The first Europeans to settle there were French Canadians, Fort Niagara was a famous strongplace that was built by the French. The area had been settled by French colonists for over 100 years before the American revolution. It is true however that the influx of loyalists from the 13 colonies was so great compared to the French speaking population that overnight they got diluted.

We don’t just have warm summers here in Canada. We have HOT AND HUMID summers where it can get up to 40°C with humidity, especially in the Golden Horseshoe.

I grew up in Mississauga, the city immediately west of Toronto in the Peel Region, and I loved it. Sure it was a little car dependent being a classic Suburbia, but it was still awesome living next to one of the most important cities in the world. Now I live outside of the GTA in London, ON, the largest city in Southwest Ontario

Same as Australia. More than 25% of Australians live within 3 hours drive of downtown Sydney.

Idk the percentage exactly, but the VAST majority of Canadians live along the St Lawrence River into Lake Ontario (Southern Ontario) which is really interesting because that's where "Canada" basically was two and three hundred years when European settlers arrived. Even though the nation expanded westward and acquired the Prarie provinces, most of Canadians still live in that initial Laurentain area

Not sure what you mean by “relatively warm summers”, it’s hot and humid. Some facts for people who hear that most of Canadians live just 100 miles from the border, which probably makes them think that the rest of Canada is inhabitable. There are towns all over Canada, very few in the North, but still. And major cities like Calgary and Edmonton are north of this zone also, 171 miles and 371 miles respectively. So yeah, it gets colder norther you go, but you can live there.

I wouldn’t call winters in the Golden Horeshoe cold, they are mild due to the proximity to Lake Ontario. It heats up during the summer and retains that heat through winter. Due to the Urban Heat Island Effect, in summer, the region experiences many days where it feels like up to 40° Celsius with the humidity.

As someone that grew up not to far outside of this region (Grey Bruce Counties) it's crazy how quick it can go from the the very rural and agricultural region I grew up in to heavy city traffic an hour or two east, like two separate worlds. I grew up thinking I lived in the middle of no where when Toronto, the biggest city in Canada, was only two hours away. I guess that's what happens when you rarely travel outside of your region! On the other hand, it's crazy now to see the amount of tourists we get from Toronto that think our life outside of the big city is something from another planet. :)

i lived in Edmonton for several years. It is quite a bit further north than 100 miles from the US border and has over 1,000,000 people.

please do a video on why Tokyo is the world's most populated city and another one on why Mongolia is the sparsely populated country.

One thing to keep in mind about Agriculture . The Lakes are Heat Sinks . For 200 years the area close to the Lakes were filled with Orchards . Damage from Frost in Spring and Fall was less of a worry because of the Lake . Vineyards cropped up later for the same Reason . It is a big Micro climate ? In the Summer when its hot we drive North of the Ridge and the Temp drops a few Degrees and is very nice when You get to the Lake Shore .

Fun fact: Edmonton is the northern most city in North America with a population of 1 million people (metro)

Canada is an "Exporting nation," where 88% of ALL produced goods are exported out of Canada, and only 12% are retained for sale within Canada, for Canadians.

Respect for proper pronunciation of Toronto.

A few years ago I went on a bike ride around Lake Ontario. The difference between the Ontario and NY sides is astounding.

cool finally a video on where I grew up, the industrialized core of Canada 20 years and counting in Etobicoke 😎

Yeah but how golden for how long? We're opening up the Greenbelt so that we, or more correctly, the government can get more easy money from development fees, and developers/government supporters, can also make money on building over that important farmland, especially if they do it with urban sprawl. And Ontarians love this, because they keep voting for a government that values money over farmland, social cohesion, etc.

Hi Geoff, great video! Video suggestion: What if Canada/US was divided by West/East instead of North/South. How would these countries compair in terms population, economy, culture, time zone and size. Thank you!

The region is like an island when you see how Lake Erie and Ontario are to the south and Lake Simcoe + Lake Huron to the north and west.

I live in the golden horseshoe and this video was very interesting and informative. 👍

This is a great video. I have learned a lot. Thank you.

Your videos inspired me to start my own channel, I love your videos!

Nicely done! 😃

Hi. Guy in Toronto here. This is one of the greatest explainer videos on this topic I've ever seen! Great job!! :D Consider me a new subscriber to your channel!!! :D

In the 19th Century Montreal emerged as the largest city in Canada (taking over from Quebec City). this was due to the construction of the Lachine Canal, that generated power and attracted industry. Also Montreal was always the center of Canada's fur industry, and capital from the fur industry financed much of Canada's earliest industry. Toronto began to take over from Montreal after the Second World War. This was largely because of the emergence in the early 20th century of heavy manufacturing, especially of steel, automobiles, household appliances and industrial machinery In the Ohio-Great Lakes region of the USA. After the Second World War, Canadian governments encouraged American industries to open branch plants in Canada, and for many the closest location was Southern Ontario. When the USA and Canada signed the Auto Pact in the early 1960s, the automotive industry experienced rapid growth in Southern Ontario, with Ford and GM having their largest plants on either side of Toronto in Oakville and Oshawa. The financial sector also began slowly moving away from Montreal to Toronto after the war, but in the 1970s Quebec's language laws caused much of the financial sector to move from Montreal to Toronto, cementing Toronto's dominance. By the 1980s, Toronto had overtaken Montreal in population, and today Greater Toronto has about 50% more people that Greater Montreal. If you consider the entire Golden Horseshoe around the west end of Lake Ontario (the arc of cities from Niagara Falls to Oshawa), the population is around 8 million, which is about the same as for Greater Chicago, and double that of Montreal.

DOOFERIN. lmao that pronunciation was brutal. think "duff beer" from the simpsons then add the last 2 sylables

Québec has left the chat…

People, in any country, tend to live close to a water source, wether it’s a coastline, river or lake. The bulk of the settlers in Canada, who came in by boat, settled close to the great lakes and the St.Lawrence river and the fertile surrounding lands. If you look at the US, for example, the bulk of the population hugs the coasts, the great lakes and the river systems.

As a former resident of the Niagara region I can attest to the abundance of the Golden Horseshoe and it’s a beautiful area that is missed by myself very much…thanks for this.

The Golden Horseshoe sounds like a casino in Pahrump.

I live in the so called golden horseshoe . The urban spread is too much . Farm land is being wrecked to put up houses. There is so much of Canada that can not be farmed not all of it in the far north . Most of it is on the Canadian shield. That is where the new houses should be built there and north of there.

I live in the Golden Horseshoe - in Toronto, it's a great place to be. The quality of life is excellent, it's clean, safe, there's plenty of fresh water, electricity, the roads are well paved, there's parks, there's lots of jobs. It's the best part of North America to live in.

Very impressive that you pronounced Toronto like us natives!

I’m a Brit that currently lives in the Golden Horseshoe - Canada will build north in the next few decades. Climate change isn’t a disaster for some places, seemingly! Lot of opportunity for the Country.

I live in the Niagara region (closer to Lake Ontario), and our winters are getting very mild and hardly any snow. This past winter, when places like NYC or Vancouver were getting hammered with snow and cold, it was nearly always above 0°C with green grass. While preferring smaller areas with less people, I do enjoy living here. Despite the issues I find things like transit is still the best with the most promise in the future, plus my city is so compact I can get around on bike easily.

Toronto over passed Montreal as Canadian biggest city only abou50 years ago, before that Montreal was the biggest, and the 2nd biggest French speaking city in the world after Paris.

Be careful, you're saying too many nice things about the Toronto area, people in BC and Alberta are going to get very upset! 😆

I don't live there. I always wondered why. I've asked both of my parents and they both shrudder and say "you wouldn't wanna"

As a Canadian born in Edmonton, Alberta, and having lived primarily in Alberta and BC, travelled more south than East, and when I did travel to Toronto, I felt very sad seeing how flat the world is out there... I need my mountains, and as a BC southern Interior resident, we have packed valleys and empty mountain tops. could use transit solutions for sure since our Greyhound Bus is gone for good... Okanagan could use some help, as Kelowna is super busy while Penticton is a pocket of business in a sea of mellowness... Traffic can be the worst with so few roads because of the lakes and mountains, and it is too beautiful in this province for many of us to leave ;)

I live on the border of the Horseshoe (across Lake Ontario in Rochester). We always heard the saying that "Canada is a country 6000 miles long and 100 miles wide." WAY too cold there, man. And that's from someone who lives next to Buffalo.

When talking about the reason this area succeeded, you really could have focused on Toronto, and needed to say the name. Toronto succeeded hugely, which overflowed to the rest.

The geography of Toronto for sure explained part of why it's the most populous city in Canada, but main reason is political. Until the 1960s Montreal was the biggest city and the economic center of Canada. But with the rise of the Quebec separatist movement, most companies and anglophone community moved to Toronto. and only 1976 Toronto passed Montreal as the biggest city, the year the Parti Québecois took power. If it wasn't for that, Montreal would probably still be the biggest Metropolitan region, but we'll never know

As a lifelong resident of southern Ontario I have never in my life heard of the Golden Horseshoe having been extended to the Kawartha's, Waterloo, Northumberland, Barrie, Guelph, et al. Your map even shows it reaching the shore of Georgian Bay. That itself is a capital WTF? The wikipedia page has an image right at the top, the area in red shows the CORE area, that is the Golden Horseshoe. Starts about Oshawa, then heads west, mostly following the 401 corridor, then continuing around the western side of Lake Ontario and around to Niagara Falls. Whoever added that "extended" or Greater Golden Horseshoe is living in a fantasy world. Now 25% of the country probably does live in that extended boundary, but that is a boundary that is completely made up and has never been referred to as the Golden Horseshoe..

I'm surprise he didn't include Southwestern Ontario. The population there is just as large, if not larger than the area he included north of Toronto.

I loved Canada when we went to visit family and friends. Life in the North was laid back compared to the US. I am hoping to retire there one day with my fiancée.

Halton resident here; can confirm, Canada is Definitely a place. 👍

Great vid! There is, however, no S in Peterborough.

Great video. Pretty solid. Pronunciations were pretty accurate aside from Dufferin. Even nailed Missisauga. Not many Americans get that. They say mississ augWA. ANyways. Weather doesn't get to bad closer to Toronto. Doen'st really get that cold. You have a few days where you get into the minus twenties. But it's not uncommon to be 12C at any point in winter. It hovers asround zero. Summers can be extremely hot and muggy and can feel like 40+ quite often. HEavy snow around Niagara and north of York region intot the northern sommuniteis like Barrie which can get hit pertty hard with snow storms. Toronto. Not so much. I good portion of the winter there can be no snow.

I left southern Ontario for alberta and never looked back. I bought a house in Calgary for 1/3rd of the price.

I live in the Golden Horseshoe, but it's being squandered by politicians. According to Macleans, Canada, especially Toronto, is now starting to resemble California, and along with that is all the problems of California. Yikes.

Growing up in the 60s they called it the fruitbelt, not many orchards now, they’ve plowed them under for homes featuring garage.

What is Torono?

It’s because of Tonawanda. More than a quarter of all Canadians want to live as close to Tonawanda as possible. This is why Hamilton is the most desirable and most envied major-ish city in Canada.

golden horseshoe losing so much fertile farmland suburbs and supermakrets

I live in the GGH. You nailed it.

The winters may still be mild but it'll get more snow than ever, and the summers are getting hotter and hotter. Not comfortable!

Canadian here ….. while most Canadians live close to the border, the best and brightest of us life further north 😂

Aprox 50% of the canadian population lives within 150 miles of the usa border. Actually the st lawrence valley was settled far far before lower Ontario (upper canada). The reason lower canada and the st lawrence valley were settled is because the land is arable and not part of the canadian shield

i use to live far north when i first came to canada, northern alberta!

In my memory Australia is the 6th largest country and 63th largest population. Yet over 70% live close to the coast and over 70% live on just 2% of land. And whats shocking: Canada and even Russia is more dense than Iceland.

If the Great Lakes did such wonders for the Golden Horseshoe (in terms of climate, agriculture & economy), Why they did nothing for Buffalo & Detroit?

I guess this explains why Canada is better known for its mining & oil industry than agriculture. It also explains why everyone who visits Canada visits Toronto and then to a lesser extent Montreal.

Your chennel is inneresting. Torano is a great city.

Can you please do an episode on Canadian Shield?

Another reason: The great exodus from Quebec and specifically Montreal beginning in the mid-1960s with the advent of modern-day Quebec French nationalism which destroyed the economic vitality of Montreal. Pre 1966, Montreal was the economic engine and dynamic centre of Canada, with most of the head offices of major corporations being located in Montreal.

Ouch at the pronunciation of Dufferin as "Doo-fer-in". It's almost unnatural to accidentally say it that way for an English speaker... but the other 99% of your video was great :)

Canadian settlement has to do mostly with transportation. Canadians today live exactly where most inhabitants of the country always lived - along the coasts, the lake shores, the riverbanks, and the confluences of rivers. The settlement pattern just happens to be close to the modern border with the U.S. The border is actually quite irrelevant. Or not.

Living in Southern Ontario just outside the golden horseshoe things have changed in terms of the climate the past couple of decades. The summers are quite hot and humid now, air conditioning is a must from June through to October. Winters aren't nearly as cold and there isn't the amount of snow we used to get in the '70's and 80's. Hell I rarely even put on a winter coat anymore and I work outside all year long.

We are closer to Toronto than New York City & would rather go there if it was not for border problems lately !

So the sum it up, the 25% are huddling there for warmth? .....and to drink together in bars? :)

I keep from everywhere people say "Oh Canada is the 2nd largest country in the world and could easily support hundreds of millions of inhabitants ...". And probably why our government opens the gates of immigration. The reality is that this is a very nearsighted thought. Like he said 98%(or more the vast majority) live within 100 miles of the border with the USA. So it's irrelevant how big the country is. Actual livable size is probably closer to Spain or France. And this is why imo our highways are probably busier than probably most US highways. Because there is just 1(Transcanada hwy) to cross the entire country and again everything is crammed down South. Canada always disappoints except on paper lol.

The problem with that blue band across the country makes it seam like Canadians are spread all along it, which is not true. A majority of Canadians live in urban centres that are close to the US border. No one says 100% of the people in Netherlands live within 100 km of the borders with Europe. More than 40% Americans live on the coasts, that's more than 127 million people. Let's also draw big blues lines down each coastline. The reason I bring this up, is this statistic (of Canadians living this close the border) is seen as some kind of failure or problem with Canada.

I just wanted to mention you called Dufferin County, “Brant”.

I do not live in the blue zone , and it is so frustrating that the blue zone people make all the rules

You are somewhat mistaken. The Golden Horseshoe is merely the perimeter of what is The Centre of the Universe.

Not only is the soil actually good for farming, but there's literally no other soil around bc of the Canadian shield. Agriculture is basically impossible in the eastern half of the country bc it's all rock

Props for saying Toronto Correctly!

Their other option is to live with polar bears, haha don't blame them.

Montreal used to be the largest city in Canada for a long while, until Quebec decided "we want to be french-only" and started pushing out banks and companies and anglophones in the late 1960s and early 1970s... so, by 1976, Toronto surpassed Montreal and has been pulling away from it, population wise, ever since. Oops! :P

You sure did your homework Geoff. Great vid! Very informative. Pleasant format. I learned a few new things and I've been living in Toronto for 40 years. BTW, you pronounce Toronto like a local. Like it should be. T'ronno

Drove past Toronto a few times on the 401. Looked at it and thought, nope, nothing to see here and kept on driving

It’s like South Korea. Half the country lives in or within and hour from Seoul.

I got to rep my home city. Edmonton's better

Ahhh, the blight on Canada which is Toronto.

There are some issues that come from having such a large percentage of the population in a very small area esp when the country as a whole is so large. This area by itself decides who runs Canada and the policies that govern the ENTIRE COUNTRY. This means that the urban core is making the rules the farmers and other more rural parts of Canada. This is currently creating division in Canada since the "city governments" are negatively effecting the less populated parts of Canada. 1 Example is the 25% who live in the golden horseshoe region may never even need their own car due to transit being easily available and affordable. However these urban voters could decide to push for a ban on personal cars that is a nationwide rule, and this would result in total abandonment, rapid decay, and outbreaks of poverty elsewhere in the country where there is no reliable alternative to driving a car.

Easily more than 1million in populace of Hamilton when Schools are in semester and students living in res or rentals.

Canadians are so obsessed with America they want to live as close to us as possible.

in short, from a Canadian: its too cold to live farther up north

The term "livable" used in the context with which you've used it to describe the Golden Horseshoe perhaps unintentionally makes a mockery of all those people living in even colder places, some having far more population than Canada.

Its only that way because Britain basically threw away the land they controlled between Vancouver BC and Vancouver WAshington in 1846. See, Vancouver across from Portland, Oregon used to be Fort Vancouver and by an 1818 treaty all land north of the Columbia River used to be Canada & all land south considered American territory. This was due to the fact American squatters were arriving at Fort Vancouver in larger numbers than British, Canadians, or even immigrants from Europe & the British Army could handle. With little support from London & American squatters arriving more & more to Fort Vancouver to send letters home to New England (via London & COD!🙄) & buying out supplies like nails & saws to build homes, the British at the Fort didn’t know what to do with all these land seekers who arrived seeking some stupid mythical land called Oregon, hungry, ill & in desperate needs, the British decided to place them a bit south of Fort Vancouver in an area called the Willamette Valley where they could be stored away from the Fort but close enough to keep a watchful eye upon. Because, ya know, they’re Americans. God only knows what kind of shenanigans they will try to pull off. But the growth to “Oregon Country” or “Columbia Territory” that the British called it, continued & some even traveled north to settle illegally around the Puget Sound region known today as the megalopolis Seattle, Tacoma, Everett region of Washington State. A piece of prime real estate with an American population of 4,000,000 people today with another 3,500,000 scattered around the regions north or west of the Columbia River border established by a gentlemens agreement in 1818. A region of huge farming potential in the Yakima Valley to the Okanogan/Lake Chelan/Wenatchee Valley regions of today which were already defined as British in 1818, but for some stupid reason London was afraid a new American President was going to take all the western land of Canada in an act of war for which James K Polk had campaigned to do as he ran for President. Known in American history as “54-40 or Fight” where Polk wanted the undecided borders between the USA & Canada to reflect the 54th parallel & the British wanted the 40th parallel. America NEVER would have gone to war it had its eye on Texas & California not friken Oregon 🤣! BUT the western border was already defined as the Columbia River but Britain totally fuc-ed that up by allowing some so-called monarch from Europe to use the 49th parallel instead which defines our border today. Queen Victoria was only 27 at the time & ill prepared to take on Polk who wasn’t even reelected & never would have had Congressional support to declare WAR against Britain as he almost immediately declared war against Mexico to help the self-declared Nation of Texas win their war against Mexico simply because they didn’t want to do any farming, they were lazy sob’s & wanted slavery instead which was both illegal in Canada & Mexico. In fact there were already Americans arriving to Oregon loaded up with their own slaves & Fort Vancouver had a problem with THAT too! If you add in the metro population of the Vancouver/Victoria BC region today with what Queen Victoria threw away back in 1846 this region of British Columbia wouldn’t even have to of defined itself as “British”. That name only comes from after the fact the British sawed off the southern end of the Columbia Territory tirning the southern region into American Columbia & the northern region into British Columbia. Make sense? It sure does. But those nasty America s wanted nothing at all to do with that name so those idiots in Washington DC renamed it all Washington, but only after they carved Oregon out from it because that really was all they really wanted. And they can keep it too. The area north of the Columbia River would be a far more populated region today & an economic power greater than that so-called horse shoe back east. Keep in mind the industries which sprouted starting with Weyerhaeuser, then Nordstrom, Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, & don’t forget McCaw cellular who started todays powerful cellular industry today owned by AT&T and also T•mobile 2 of the 3 largest cell companies throughout North America with a dynamic population of at least 10,000,000 people in this region which is today called CASCADIA …which include 2 multi-trillion dollar corporations: Microsoft & Amazon who have literally changed the world. All of that simply thrown away over a bluff of war against an inexperienced Queen. We aren’t talking billions we are talking TRILLIONS 😭If Queen Victoria knew then what the Cascadia Region today would be she would have gone to War & kept Oregon as a consolation prize & kept her 40th parallel as the border between us & would be enjoying free oil from most of North Dakota too! Something to think about, Canada. That’s what you get for trusting the British on building a nation. You’re probably lucky the Russians didn’t soak up what Polk allowed you to keep by playing that popular game of the time “chicken”.