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

Canada is the second largest country in the world by area

Despite this, Canada is ranked 37th in the world in terms of population

And when we boil it down even further, the vast majority of Canadians live very close to the United States border

In particular, Canada's golden horseshoe is home to approximately one out of every four Canadians

Here's why. Welcome to Geography by Jeff. Have you ever noticed just how large Canada is

It's a truly huge country. Despite this, most Canadians don't actually live all that far north

Today, we're going to explore a particular part of Canada that's been dubbed the Golden Horseshoe

But first, if you enjoy my channel, be sure to check out my podcast that covers many of the same geographic topics you love

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Before we talk about the Golden Horseshoe specifically, we should first talk about Canada more broadly

Canada is a really large country in terms of area. It's almost inconceivably large

But while Canada is a huge country, the vast majority of its people live within 100 miles of the border with the United States

There's an interesting geographic story for why this is, and we'll get to that in a future episode

But for now, it's largely because of just how inhospitable Canada is once you get even a little farther north

And it's because of this same issue that we see early Canadian settlers begin to identify the Golden Horseshoe

as one of the few areas at the time that was not only accessible, but actually livable

In fact, we can go back even further than the early British Canadian settlers to see that even the indigenous peoples found the area to be highly valuable

The Iroquois established two villages on what would later be the city of Toronto, followed

by the Mississauga tribe in the early 1700s. All that's to say, there's always been something special about this particular area

But the first large influx of European settlers to the area did not come directly from Britain France or even British Canada They came from the original 13 colonies of the United States You see during the American Revolutionary War people who were loyal to the

crown fled the 13 colonies for areas that were still controlled by Britain, of which Canada was

the nearest one. And the royalty of Great Britain at the time granted those same settlers land within

this area, in part to compensate them for their losses in the 13 colonies. But while these settlers

started the first movement towards inhabiting the area we today call the Golden Horseshoe

it wasn't for another 25 years that any serious form of settlement began. In 1793, the town of

York was established within the area, which would later become the capital of the region known as

Upper Canada. This would be the very same York that was plundered and destroyed by American

troops during the War of 1812. Once free, the local Canadians at the time began to rebuild the

town of York, and also opted to change its name to something more in line with the indigenous tribes

Toronto. From there, the region began to grow rapidly. For the remainder of the 19th century

the greater Toronto region welcomed immigrants from many European countries, including many Irish refugees fleeing the Irish Famine

At the beginning of the 1800s, the general area of Toronto had fewer than 10,000 people living in it

By 1901, however, nearly 240,000 people lived within the city of Toronto alone

The Golden Horseshoe today is largely comprised of the cities of Toronto and Hamilton

the regions of York, Peel, Niagara, Halton, Durham, and Waterloo, and many smaller cities and regions

It is truly an eclectic and diverse area that today is home to over a quarter of all Canadians in the country

And while there's been historic reasons for the original movements to this area, there are reasons why so many people live and move to the Golden Horseshoe today

Canada has many livable areas and regions. The metro areas of Vancouver and Montreal, for example, are home to millions of Canadians

But neither of those metro areas has ever been able to reach the heights that the Golden Horseshoe has

But before we get into why exactly the Golden Horseshoe has so many Canadians, if you're enjoying this video, hit that subscribe button

More fun geography videos are just a single click away. The reason so many people live in the Golden Horseshoe today is basically stated within the name itself The entire area is blessed with many benefits that enable a vast quantity of people to live and work there The word golden was specifically used when the area was first described in 1954 because there was so much prosperity occurring within this particular

region of Canada. The first and probably most obvious reason for why this region has grown so

much is due to the sheer amount of water available. The golden horseshoe lies within the heart of the

Great Lakes region. It exists right in between Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Huron. This makes the

Golden Horseshoe the region with the most amount of people with direct access to the most amount of

fresh water over anywhere else in the world. Mega cities and regions are not uncommon, but few have

such an enviable source of fresh water so readily available. But while fresh water is very important

another thing is needed to ensure the continued growth of any region, agriculture. Luckily for

the early settlers, this area of Canada is one of the very few with Louvassal soil, which is

classified by the Food and Agriculture Organization as a soil with high amounts of nutrients with good

drainage. This makes it particularly well-suited for farming and growing crops. Today, the area is

home to over 2 million acres of protected habitat and farmland, dubbed the Greenbelt. And within the

Greenbelt, over 200 different farming commodities are grown, including a fairly robust wine region

And all of this is enabled by a surprisingly mild climate. For Canada, according to the

method of determining climate across geography, the Golden Horseshoe region has a climate that

has cold winters but relatively warm summers. This means that, between April and October

the region is quite comfortable for those living there. They just have to survive an otherwise

pretty frosty winter. Finally, the Golden Horseshoe also happens to be right in between two major

regions of the United States, which lends itself to a lot of economic benefits. You see, Canada's

largest trading partner in the world is the United States. Over 75% of all Canadian goods

are exported to the US. With this region being directly connected to New York City by way of

Buffalo and Chicago by way of Detroit, it enabled an economic generation that other regions of

Canada simply don't have. All of this has combined to create the very unique and very

wealthy region of the Golden Horseshoe The Golden Horseshoe today is anchored by Canada largest city Toronto with about 2 million people and the city of Hamilton with about 600 people

This is followed by the Peel region, which has about 1.4 million people, and the York region with about 1.2 million people

And bringing up the rear are Durham, Halton, and Niagara regions with 700,000, 600,000, and 475,000 people, respectively

If you're doing your math correctly, this adds up to about 7.8 million people

These regions and cities are what make up the original Golden Horseshoe. Since 2004, however, the Golden Horseshoe has been extended to additional areas nearby as development has grown

These extended areas include the counties of Brant, Dufresne, Haldimand-Norfolk, Northumberland, Petersburg, Simcoe, and Wellington, as well as the Waterloo region and Kawartha Lakes

bringing the total population of the Greater Golden Horseshoe to 9.8 million people

This would equate to 26% of all Canadians living within an area about one-tenth of one percent of all of Canada's land

That's an incredible statistic that few other countries have. And not only is this the most dominant region in terms of population

but it's also the most dominant economically. The Toronto Stock Exchange is the third largest stock exchange in North America

behind the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, and the 11th largest in the world

The economy of Toronto alone is absolutely dominant within the country, providing roughly 20% of Canada's entire GDP

This is largely due to Toronto being a hub for key markets such as finance

technology, and entertainment. All of this is to say, the golden horseshoe easily makes up

Canada's most important region by a wide margin. Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton

and many other Canadian cities and regions are very important to Canada overall

But no other region is as dominant or domestically important as the Golden Horseshoe

A confluence of geographic factors has led to this area being within one of the Earth's few

Golden Regions, much to Toronto's great benefit. I hope you enjoyed learning about Canada's Golden Horseshoe

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Thanks for watching. See you next time