Portal:Ontario
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Ontario is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. Located in Central Canada, it is Canada's most populous province, with 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province by total area (after Quebec). Ontario is Canada's fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also Ontario's provincial capital.
Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east and northeast, and to the south by the U.S. states of (from west to east) Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Almost all of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,678 mi) border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the westerly Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River drainage system. These include Rainy River, Pigeon River, Lake Superior, St. Marys River, Lake Huron, St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, Detroit River, Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall. There is only about 1 km (0.6 mi) of land border, made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border.
Ontario is sometimes conceptually divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontario's population and arable land is in the south. In contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and heavy forestation. (Full article...)
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Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before striking the United States near the border between North and South Carolina as a Category 4 hurricane. After causing 95 fatalities in the US, Hazel struck Canada as an extratropical storm, raising the death toll by 81 people, mostly in Toronto. As a result of the high death toll and the damage caused by Hazel, its name was retired from use for North Atlantic hurricanes.
In Haiti, Hazel destroyed 40 percent of the coffee trees and 50 percent of the cacao crop, affecting the economy for several years. The hurricane made landfall near Calabash, North Carolina, destroying most waterfront dwellings. It then traveled north along the Atlantic coast. Hazel affected Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York; it brought gusts near 160 km/h (100 mph) and caused $281 million (1954 USD) in damage. When it was over Pennsylvania, Hazel consolidated with a cold front and turned northwest towards Canada. When it hit Ontario as an extratropical storm, rivers and streams in and around Toronto overflowed their banks, which caused severe flooding. As a result, many residential areas in the local floodplains, such as the Raymore Drive area, were subsequently converted to parkland. In Canada alone, over C$135 million (2020: C$1.3 billion) of damage was incurred.
The effects of Hazel were particularly unprecedented in Toronto due to a combination of heavy rainfall during the preceding weeks, a lack of experience in dealing with tropical storms, and the storm's unexpected retention of power despite traveling 1,100 km (680 mi) over land. The storm stalled over the Toronto area, and although it was now extratropical, it remained as powerful as a category 1 hurricane. To help with the cleanup, 800 members of the military were summoned, and a Hurricane Relief Fund was established that distributed $5.1 million (2019: $48.6 million) in aid.
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- ... that in 1987, Royal Society of Canada fellow Kathryn Brush was one of the first women to be hired for a full-time position in art history at the University of Western Ontario?
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- Help expand stub articles: There are numerous stub articles relating to Ontario. You can help by expanding them. See Ontario stubs for a list. Also, for geographical (places) stubs, refer to:
- Eastern Ontario: Eastern Ontario geography stubs
- Toronto: Toronto geography stubs
- Ottawa: Ottawa stubs - All stubs relating to Ottawa in general
- Northern Ontario: Northern Ontario geography stubs
- Western Ontario: Western Ontario geography stubs
- Golden Horseshoe: Golden Horseshoe geography stubs
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