Toronto audiotours

Toronto was incorporated in 1834 on land the Mississaugas called a place where trees stand in the water, survived an American occupation in the War of 1812 and a Great Fire in 1904, and became Canada's financial capital in the 1980s by surpassing Montreal. The CN Tower dominated the skyline from 1976 until recently, and the Distillery District preserves one of the finest collections of Victorian industrial architecture on the continent in the former Gooderham and Worts distillery. Casa Loma, a 1911 castle built by financier Henry Pellatt on a Davenport Ridge hill, comes with tunnels extending under the hill that are exactly as improbable as they sound.

The real story of Toronto is demographic.

About half its population was born outside Canada, with over 200 ethnic origins and more than 160 languages spoken. This is not a boast; it's a physical fact visible within any ten-minute walk. Kensington Market compresses a dozen cuisines into four blocks. Chinatown on Spadina Avenue is one of North America's largest. The suburb of Scarborough, connected to downtown by the Bloor-Danforth subway, contains what many argue is the best South Asian food on the continent. The ravine system that runs green through the city, 300 kilometers of protected valleys, divides neighborhood from neighborhood in ways that maps undersell.