List_of_neighbourhoods_in_Toronto

List of neighbourhoods in Toronto

List of neighbourhoods in Toronto

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The strength and vitality of the many neighbourhoods that make up Toronto, Ontario, Canada has earned the city its unofficial nickname of "the city of neighbourhoods."[1] There are 158 neighbourhoods officially recognized by the City of Toronto (in 2022, 34 neighbourhoods were created from 16 of the previous 140)[2] and upwards of 240 official and unofficial neighbourhoods within city limits.[3]

Roncesvalles, a 'core' neighbourhood of Toronto, in 2001

The current City of Toronto is the amalgamation of the former Metropolitan Toronto municipalities. These are East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, Toronto and York, each of which retains a community history. The names of these municipalities are still often used by Toronto residents, sometimes for disambiguation purposes as amalgamation resulted in duplicated street names. The area known as Toronto before the 1998 amalgamation is sometimes called the "old" City of Toronto, and "the core". For administrative purposes, Toronto is divided into four districts: Etobicoke-York, North York, Scarborough and Toronto-East York.

Map of Toronto including the former municipalities that existed before 1998

The former Toronto district is, by far, the most populous and densest part of the city. It is also the business and administrative centre of the city. The uniquely Torontonian bay-and-gable housing style is common throughout the former city. The "inner ring" suburbs of York and East York are older, predominantly middle-income areas, and ethnically diverse. Much of the housing stock in these areas consists of pre-World War II single-family houses and some post-war high-rises. Many of the neighbourhoods in these areas were built up as streetcar suburbs and contain many dense and mixed-use streets, some of which are one-way. They share many characteristics with sections of the "old" city outside the downtown core. The "outer ring" suburbs of Etobicoke, Scarborough, and North York are much more suburban in nature (although these districts are developing urban centres of their own, such as North York City Centre around Mel Lastman Square).

The following is a list of the more notable neighbourhoods, organized by former municipality.

Neighbourhoods by former municipality

Toronto

See also: Old Toronto

Old Toronto refers to the City of Toronto and its boundaries from 1967 to 1997. It is sometimes referred to as the "South" or "Central" district, and includes the "downtown core". Some of these names such as "The Fashion District" are (or were) used as marketing for the areas or by BIAs; this area is actually called "King-Spadina" by locals. Another example is the "Old Town of York", also known as "King and Parliament" (although that intersection is one block east of the original ten blocks that formed the old town). Some people in the area[who?] also consider it to be a suburb of the main city of Toronto, as many choose to move there in pursuit of a more relaxed and "backwoods" vibe.[4]

Many were recreated or named to reconnect the areas with their past history, early beginnings, or even recent use and prominence. Some historical city "wards" used in the 19th century are no longer used: St. David's, St. John's, St. Paul's, St. George's, St. Andrew's, and St. Patrick's wards. There was a ward named for the patron saint of each of the three British nationalities: English (St. George), Scottish (St. Andrew), Welsh (St. David) and Irish (St. Patrick). St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick still survive as subway stations, though St. George station is not named after the ward, but after St. George Street instead, itself named after Quetton St. George, a local military officer and landowner. St. Lawrence's Ward (named after the patron saint of Canada and the river, itself also named after the saint) remains, known today as "St. Lawrence". St. Paul's (named after the saint) remains as the name of an electoral district for each of the three levels of government, although the electoral district has very little to no overlap with the historic St. Paul's Ward and beginning in the 2015 Canadian federal election, the electoral district was renamed Toronto—St. Paul's. This meant that the St. Paul's electoral district is a misnomer for much of the history of the electoral district.

For the purposes of geographic distinction, Old Toronto is broken down into four subsections:

Downtown Core (Central)

See also: Downtown Toronto

East End

See also: East Toronto

North End

See also: North Toronto

West End

East York

See also: East York

An autonomous urban borough until 1997, East York is located north of Danforth Avenue between the Don River to the west and Victoria Park Avenue to the east, though Shoppers World Danforth was located in East York. East York was an exclave of York from 1922 to 1924 and became a separate municipality to simplify governance. East York developed contemporaneously with the West End of old Toronto, and it is similar in form and character. In 1967, East York was expanded to include the Town of Leaside. Since the 1998 amalgamation, it is administered together with old Toronto, and separate from Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke-York, by the "Toronto and East York Neighbourhood Council".

East York itself is commonly divided into two zones with mainly Edwardian urban neighbourhoods situated south of Taylor-Massey Creek and referred to as Old East York.

Etobicoke

See also: Etobicoke

The former township and city of Etobicoke is on the west side of the Humber River. Several of its neighbourhoods, such as Long Branch, New Toronto, and Mimico, were villages independent of Etobicoke. Others, such as Claireville, Islington and Thistletown were former postal villages established when Etobicoke was an agrarian district. Others are residential subdivisions built after World War II as Toronto expanded.

Etobicoke is often divided into three zones: north, central, and south, roughly approximate to that of the electoral districts of all three levels of government.

North York

See also: North York

The former city of North York is located north of York, Old Toronto, and East York, from the Humber River to the west and Victoria Park Avenue to the east. North York is split by Yonge Street into an east section and a west section. Several of North York's neighbourhoods (such as Lansing, Newtonbrook and Willowdale) developed from postal villages when North York Township was primarily agrarian. Others are residential subdivisions developed after World War II. North York City Centre is a commercial district developed to be the 'downtown' of the city.

Scarborough

See also: Scarborough, Ontario

The district of Scarborough extends from the east side of Victoria Park Avenue to the eastern border of Toronto. West Rouge was transferred from Pickering to Scarborough in 1974 as part of the establishment of Durham Region. It is the largest district by area.

Many of the neighbourhoods, such as Agincourt, Brown's Corners and Milliken, correspond to former postal villages supporting the then-agrarian township. Others are residential subdivisions developed after World War II. Others are commercial districts.

York

See also: York, Ontario

The former city of York is situated between Old Toronto and North York, west of Bathurst Street (aside from the neighbourhood of Tichester at the southeasternmost corner of the former city, which extends as far east as Walmer Road and includes much of St. Clair West station, including its northern entrance on Heath Street, as well as St. Michael's College School). The community of Weston, to the northwest, was itself an independent village. Several neighbourhoods are former residential subdivisions built on the limits with Toronto before and after World War II.

York is often divided into two sections: a western section and an eastern section, on either side of GO Transit's Barrie rail line.

History

Main article: History of neighbourhoods in Toronto
See also: Amalgamation of Toronto

Lists of city-designated neighbourhoods

For administrative purposes, the City of Toronto divides the city into 158 neighbourhoods. These divisions are used for internal planning purposes. The boundaries and names often do not conform to the usage of the general population or designated business improvement areas. A number of neighbourhood maps of Toronto do exist, some produced by real estate firms and some by Internet portals. A project to map the neighbourhoods according to the common usage of the residents was done by the Toronto Star newspaper. Based on feedback from Toronto Star readers, it has produced the most comprehensive, albeit informal, neighbourhood map. 31 of these neighbourhoods are Neighbourhood Improvement Areas with the strategy to strengthen the social, economic and physical conditions and delivers local impact for city-wide change in these areas.[2]

Table

More information CDN number, City-designated neighbourhood ...

Business improvement areas

There are also several dozen city designated business improvement areas, covering almost all of Toronto's commercial areas. Some of these serve a particular ethnic group or several similar ethnic groups as part of an ethnic enclave.

Multiple listing service districts and neighbourhoods

After the update of Toronto Multiple listing service (MLS) on July 5, 2011, the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) introduced a new search feature for the Toronto MLS, used by real estate agents operating in the region. MLS searches can be refined at three levels and MLS users can search houses by area, then by municipality, and then by neighbourhood or community. As with the other MLS services for other jurisdictions, it used Microsoft's Bing Maps for its web mapping features until 2018, when it switched to Google Maps. These feature changes were the first change of this magnitude in about 50 years of Toronto MLS history since its establishment.[5]

The change was designed to eliminate the obsolete coding systems whereby Greater Toronto was divided into 86 artificial districts denominated by alphanumeric codes. Due to the growing population in the city and the increasing difficulty of browsing the code-based system, the TREB made a radical change, which is intended to simplify the use of MLS for real estate agents and home buyers.[6]

Because Toronto is a populous municipality of its own, the core city area will continue to be split into coded districts, although each of the districts will in turn contain neighbourhoods. Hence, the city will be easily searchable as well.[6]

The following table contains a complete list of Toronto districts with a possibly incomplete list of Toronto neighbourhoods within each district:[7][8]

More information District Number, Neighbourhoods Included ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "The Globe's Insider's City Guides: Toronto" John Allemang, Tralee Pearce. The Globe and Mail. Jun 11, 2003. pg. T.1
  2. [2]
    Toronto, City of (4 February 2024). "About Toronto Neighbourhoods". toronto.ca.
  3. [3]
    "City of Toronto Residential Communities and Business Improvement Areas Map" (PDF). toronto.ca. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-01-03. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
  4. [4]
    "Areas and Suburbs in Toronto | Expat Arrivals". Expat Arrivals. 2014-05-16. Retrieved 2017-04-23.
  5. [5]
    New Zoning in Toronto MLS Brings Neighbourhood Names and Municipalities by Jamie Sarner, accessed on July 5, 2011.
  6. [6]
    MLS Zoning Change: TREB Introducing Friendly Community Names Archived 2011-07-11 at the Wayback Machine by ILoveToronto.com, accessed on July 5, 2011.
  7. [7]
    Looking at Homes: Your Daily Listings by Jamie Sarner, accessed on July 5, 2011.
  8. [8]
    TREB Zones & Regions Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine by Toronto Real Estate Board, accessed on July 5, 2011.
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