Geographic overview
Montréal
Québec City
Québec is a land of rivers and millions of lakes, and is crossed over a distance of almost 1200 km by the St. Lawrence River, whose estuary broadens to a width of 60 km. Over half of the land base is covered by majestic forests.
Québec has an area of almost 1.7 million km², making it over three times the size of France and slightly larger than Alaska, the largest US state. Most privately-owned land is located in the south of Québec along the St. Lawrence, which is where a majority of the population lives: Greater Montréal alone accounts for almost half of the population of Québec. Most land under public ownership is found in the central and northern parts of the province, and is sparsely inhabited. However, it contains important reserves of natural resources that are essential to Québec’s social and economic development.
Montréal: the main urban pole
Greater Montréal has a population of over 3 600 000 and has become a second home for the members of many different cultural communities. It is also Québec’s main economic and financial centre. It ranks third in North America, after San Francisco and Seattle, for its percentage of high-tech jobs, and in 2006 it was named a UNESCO City of Design.
Montréal has four universities (two French-language, two English-language) and several university-affiliated schools and institutes. The university sector is recognized for its programs in the fields of aerospace, biopharmaceuticals, and information and communication technologies. The Greater Montréal area ranks second in North America, after Boston, for the student/population ratio.
Montréal is a safe, friendly city, and the venue for a wide range of major cultural and sports events including the Montréal international jazz festival, the “Just for Laughs” festival, Les FrancoFolies, the Montréal Grand Prix and the Montréal Bike Fest.
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Québec City : the capital
The greater Québec City area has a population of 700 000. The Historic District of Old Québec, the cradle of French civilization in North America, was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985 and became the first North American urban setting to obtain this recognition.
Québec City is a centre for administration, tourism and services. However, in recent years it has also experienced a major technological transition with the arrival of firms and research centres in several high-tech sectors such as optics, photonics, defence and security equipment, and electronics.
Compared to other cities of a similar size, Québec City offers the most competitive business set-up and operating costs in the world.
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