Learn about Montreal

Montreal is Canada's second-largest city and the cultural capital of Quebec, built on an island in the St. Lawrence River around the extinct volcano that gives the city its name -- Mount Royal. Founded as a French Catholic mission in 1642, it has grown into a genuinely bilingual metropolis where English and French coexist in daily life more evenly than almost anywhere else in North America.

The city's identity is built on that duality. Old Montreal's stone streets and 17th-century architecture sit a short walk from a downtown of glass towers and an underground city built to escape the winter cold, while neighborhoods like the Plateau and Mile End carry a food and arts scene that draws comparisons to European cities as often as North American ones.

Montreal's calendar is packed with festivals nearly year-round, from summer's jazz and comedy festivals to winter's own outdoor events -- a city that leans into its long, snowy winters rather than simply enduring them.