Website Design in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area)

About the GTA

The Greater Toronto Area is one of North America's fastest-growing urban areas. As an economic area, the GTA consists of the City of Toronto and four regional municipalities in a total area of 7,125 km². This covers an area roughly equivalent to the surface area Lake Simcoe, on its northern reaches. [1] Vast parts of the GTA remain farmland and forests, including protected sections of the Oak Ridges Moraine, Rouge Park and the Niagara Escarpment. All of these areas are protected by the Greenbelt. Nevertheless, low-density suburban developments continue to be built, some on or near ecologically sensitive and protected areas. The government of Ontario has recently attempted to address this issue through the "Places to Grow" proposal which emphasizes higher-density growth in existing urban centres over the next 25 years. iLLusive Design is a GTA Web Design Company.

 

The population of this area is 5,555,912 as of 2006. The City of Toronto is now a single-tier municipality, but before 1998 it had a similar "regional" structure under the name Metropolitan Toronto, and comprised of Toronto (old), York, North York, East York, Etobicoke and Scarborough. Originally, Toronto was called the City of Toronto, and the others were boroughs. Eventually, York and North York were called "cities", though still part of the Toronto Municipal Government. Eventually, the idea of boroughs and cities was discarded and there is now one City of Toronto, with its northern border Steeles Avenue, and its southern border Lake Ontario.

 

The City of Hamilton, Regional Municipality of Niagara and City of Guelph all have significant ties to Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. Nonetheless, they are geographically distant enough not to be considered part of the GTA, officially or otherwise. In some cases the provincial government already includes Hamilton and Niagara as part of the GTA for record keeping purposes as well as for transportation planning.

 

In 2001, Statistics Canada identified four major urban regions exhibiting a cluster pattern of concentrated population growth. Among these regions, the Extended Golden Horseshoe Census Region includes all of the Greater Toronto Area (which includes Oshawa), Niagara, Hamilton, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo and Barrie. Combined, the Extended Golden Horseshoe has a population of 8,116,000 in 2006. [2], containing approximately 25% of Canada's population.

 

* Source Wikipedia