Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Province of the Canadian Shield, a vast rocky plateau located mainly north of Lake Huron (including Georgian Bay), the French River, Lake Nipissing, and the Mattawa River. The statistical region extends south of the Mattawa River to include all of the District of Nipissing. The southern section of this district lies on part of the Grenville Geological Province of the Shield which occupies the transitional area between Northern and Southern Ontario.
The extended federal and provincial quasi-administrative regions of Northern Ontario have their own boundaries even further south in the transitional area that vary according to their respective government policies and requirements. Ontario government departments and agencies such as the Growth Plan for Northern Ontario and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation define Northern Ontario as all areas north of, and including, the districts of Parry Sound and Nipissing for political purposes, and the federal but not the provincial government also includes the district of Muskoka.
The statistical region has a land area of and constitutes 88 percent of the land area of Ontario, but with just 780,000 people, it contains only about six percent of the province's population."The Political Wilderness; Northern Ontario has a long history of alienation. Now, a growing chorus is calling on the North to take control of its economic and political future". Ottawa Citizen, October 6, 2007. The climate is characterized by extremes of temperature, with very cold winters and hot summers. The principal industries are mining, forestry, and hydroelectricity.
For some purposes, Northern Ontario is further subdivided into Northeastern and Northwestern Ontario. When the region is divided in that way, the three westernmost districts (Rainy River, Kenora and Thunder Bay) constitute Northwestern Ontario, and the other districts constitute Northeastern Ontario . Northeastern Ontario contains two thirds of Northern Ontario's population.
In the early 20th century, Northern Ontario was often called "New Ontario", although that name has fallen into disuse because of its colonial connotations. (In French, however, the region may still be referred to as , although and are now more commonly used.)
Territorial evolution
Those areas which formed part of New France in the , essentially the watersheds of the Ottawa River, Lake Huron and Lake Superior, had been acquired by the British by the Treaty of Paris (1763) and became part of Upper Canada in 1791, and then the Province of Canada between 1840 and 1867.
At the time of Canadian Confederation in 1867, the portion of Northern Ontario lying south of the Laurentian Divide was part of Ontario, whilst the portion north of the divide was part of the separate British territory of Rupert's Land. The province's boundaries were provisionally expanded northward and westward in 1874, whilst the Lake of the Woods region remained subject to a boundary dispute between Ontario and Manitoba. The region was confirmed as belonging to Ontario by decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1884,ONTARIO-MANITOBA BOUNDARY CASE and confirmed by the Canada (Ontario Boundary) Act, 1889 of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which set the province's new northern boundary at the Albany River.
The remaining northernmost portion of the province, from the Albany River to Hudson Bay, was transferred to the province from the Northwest Territories by the Parliament of Canada in the Ontario Boundaries Extension Act, 1912. This region was originally established as the District of Patricia, but was merged into the Kenora District in 1937.
Judicial and administrative divisions The Province of Canada began creating judicial districts in sparsely populated Northern Ontario with the establishment of Algoma District and Nipissing District in 1858. These districts had no municipal function; they were created for the provision of judicial and administrative services from the district seat. Nipissing had no district seat until 1895. Up until that date, registry office and higher court services were available at Pembroke in Renfrew County. Nipissing Stipendiary Magistrate and land registrar William Doran established his residence at North Bay in 1885. Following the hotly contested district town election in 1895, North Bay earned the right to become the district seat in the new Provisional District of Nipissing. After the creation of the province of Ontario in 1867, the first district to be established was Thunder Bay in 1871 which until then had formed part of Algoma District. The Ontario government was reluctant to establish new districts in the north, partly because the northern and western boundaries of Ontario were in dispute after Confederation. Ontario's right to Northwestern Ontario was determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1884 and confirmed by the Canada (Ontario Boundary) Act, 1889 of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. By 1899 there were seven northern districts: Algoma, Manitoulin, Muskoka, Nipissing, Parry Sound, Rainy River, and Thunder Bay. Five more northern districts were created between 1907 and 1922: Cochrane, Kenora, Sudbury, Temiskaming and Patricia. The Patricia District was then merged into the Kenora District in 1927.
Unlike the counties and regional municipalities of Southern Ontario, which have a government and administrative structure and jurisdiction over specified government services, a district lacks that level of administration. Districts are too sparsely populated to maintain a county government system, so many district-based services are provided directly by the provincial government. For example, districts have provincially maintained secondary highways instead of county roads.
Statistically, the districts in Northern Ontario (which appear in red on the location map) are Rainy River, Kenora, Thunder Bay, Cochrane, Timiskaming, Algoma, Sudbury, Nipissing and Manitoulin. The single-tier municipality of Greater Sudbury — which is not politically part of the District of Sudbury — is the only census division in Northern Ontario where county-level services are offered by a local government rather than the province.
A portion of the Nipissing District which lies south of the geographic dividing line between Northern and Southern Ontario is considered administratively and statistically part of Northern Ontario because of its status as part of Nipissing. As well, for administrative purposes, the districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound are sometimes treated as part of Northern Ontario even though they are geographically in Southern or Central Ontario. In 2004, finance minister Greg Sorbara removed Muskoka from the jurisdictional area of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund,"Muskoka moves to Southern Ontario". The Globe and Mail, May 27, 2004. to which it had been added in 2000 by his predecessor Ernie Eves,"Why Northern Ontario is creeping southward". The Globe and Mail, May 15, 2000. but the province continues to treat Parry Sound as a Northern Ontario division under both programs. The federal government continues to retain both more southerly districts in the service area of FedNor.
All of Northeastern Ontario is within the Eastern (UTC −5) time zone; Northwestern Ontario is split between the Eastern and Central (UTC −6) time zones.
Communities
Cities Northern Ontario has nine cities. In order of population as of the Canada 2021 Census, they are: Name of city Population CMA/CA population CMA/CAGreater Sudbury 166,004 170,605 CMAThunder Bay 108,843 123,258 CMASault Ste. Marie 72,051 76,731 CANorth Bay 52,662 71,736 CATimmins 41,145 41,145 CAKenora 14,967 14,967 CAElliot Lake 11,372 11,372 CATemiskaming Shores 9,634 N/A Dryden 7,388 N/A
In the Province of Ontario there are no requirements to become a city and the designation is voluntary. As a result, there are four towns in Northern Ontario that have a larger population than its smallest city Dryden.
Until the City of Greater Sudbury was created in 2001, Thunder Bay had a larger population than the old city of Sudbury, but the Regional Municipality of Sudbury was the larger Census Metropolitan Area as Sudbury had a much more populous suburban belt (including the city of Valley East, formerly the region's sixth-largest city.) However, as the former Regional Municipality of Sudbury is now governed as a single city, it is both the region's largest city and the region's largest CMA.
Towns Other municipalities in Northern Ontario include: Name of TownPopulation (2021) Population (2016)Population percentage change, 2016 to 2021West Nipissing14,58314,3641.5Kapuskasing8,0578,292 -2.8Kirkland Lake7,7507,981 -2.9Fort Frances7,466 7,739 -3.5Parry Sound6,8796,4087.4Oliver Paipoonge6,0355,9221.9 Cochrane5,390 5,3211.3Sioux Lookout5,8395,27210.8Hearst4,7945,070 -5.4 Espanola5,185 4,9962.7Greenstone4,3094,636 -7.1Iroquois Falls4,4184,537 -2.6Red Lake4,0944,107 -0.3
Economy
Sudbury is the dominant city in Northeastern Ontario, and Thunder Bay is the dominant city in Northwestern Ontario. These two regions are quite distinct from each other economically and culturally, and although the two regions are adjacent, their population centres are quite distant from each other. As a result, Sudbury and Thunder Bay are each the primary city in their part of the region but neither city can be said to outrank the other as the principal economic centre of Northern Ontario as a whole.
In fact, each city has a couple of distinct advantages that the other city lacks — Sudbury is at the centre of a larger economic sphere due to the city's, and Northeastern Ontario's, larger population but Thunder Bay is advantaged by air, rail and shipping traffic due to its prime location along major continental transportation routes. The Thunder Bay International Airport is the third busiest airport in Ontario after Toronto Pearson International Airport and Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport, carrying some 600,000 passengers in 2004 with over 100 domestic flights and four international flights daily. Sudbury's economy, in which the largest sectors of employment are government-related fields such as education and health care, is somewhat more diversified than Thunder Bay's, which is still based primarily on natural resources and manufacturing. Yet, in the era of government cutbacks, Thunder Bay's economy has been less prone to recession and unemployment. Sudbury trades more readily into Southern Ontario, whereas Thunder Bay has closer trade ties to Manitoba and Minnesota.
Under the staples thesis of Canadian economic history, Northern Ontario is a "hinterland" or "periphery" region, whose economic development has been defined primarily by providing raw natural resource materials to larger and more powerful business interests from elsewhere in Canada or the world.