Laval, Quebec

Laval is a city, a regional county municipality and a region in southwestern Quebec, Canada in the Greater Montreal Area. It is located on Ile Jesus, across the Rivière des Prairies from Montreal. It also includes the Îles-Laval in the Rivière des Prairies. The city has a population of 343,005 (Statistics Quebec, 2001). Laval also constitutes one of the 17 regions of Quebec.

Laval was named after the first owner of Île Jésus, François de Montmorency-Laval, the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec. It was incorporated on August 6, 1965 when the Quebec government merged the 14 municipalities that comprised Laval County:

• Auteuil
• Chomedy
• Duvernay
• Fabreville
• Îles-Laval
• Laval-des-Rapides
• Laval-Ouest
• Laval-sur-le-Lac
• Pont-Viau
• Sainte-Dorothée
• Sainte-Rose
• Saint-François
• Saint-Vincent-de-Paul
• Vimont

The Island is still very rural in nature, with most of the urban area in the central region, and along the south and west coasts. Laval is served by Autoroutes 25, 19, 13 and 15 and is traverssed by Autoroute 440. There are six road bridges to the Montreal island, and seven bridges to the north shore region, comprising of the communities of Deux-Montagnes, Saint-Eustache, Boisbriand, Rosemère, Lorraine, Bois-des-Filion, and Terrebonne.

Politically, Laval is a battleground area between the Quebec nationalist parties (The Bloc Quebecois federally and the Parti Quebecois provincially) and the federalist parties (The Liberal Party of Canada and the Parti liberal du Quebec). The only exception is Chomedy in the south, which voted overwhelmingly to not separate in the 1995 Quebec referendum. The other parts of Laval were narrowly split.

The city is about 6% Anglophone, 73% Francophone and 20% Allophone. The city is 91% White, but is also home to a sizable black and Arab minority. The city is 81% Roman Catholic. The median income is $23,965.

Laval's main attraction is the Cosmodôme.

Laval is bounded on the south and east by Montreal, on the north by MRC des Moulins and on the west by MRC de Thérèse-de-Blainville and MRC de Deux-Montagnes.

History

Laval was first settled by Jesuits in 1636 when they were granted a seigneury there. Agricultrure first appeared in Laval in 1670. In 1675, François de Montmorency-Laval gained control of the seigneury. In 1702 a parish was founded, and dedicated to Saint-François de Sales. The first municipalities on the island were created in 1845, after nearly 200 years of a rural nature. The only built up area on the island, Sainte-Rose was incorporated as a village in 1850, and remained as the main community for the remainder of the century. With the dawn of the 20th century came urbanization. Laval-des-Rapides became Laval's first city in 1912 and was follwed by L’Abord-à-Plouffe being granted village states three years later. Laval-sur-le-Lac was founded in the same year based on its tourist-based economy from Montrealers. Laval began to grow throughout the following years, due to its proximity to Montreal which made it an ideal suburb. To deal with problems caused by urbanization, amalgamations occured like when l’Abord-à-Plouffe amalgamated with Renaud and Saint-Martin creating the city of Chomedy in 1961. The amalgamation turned out to be succesful for the municipalities involved, and the Quebec government decided to amalgamate the whole island into the city of Laval in 1965. At the time, Laval had a population of 170,000. Laval became a Regional County Municipality in 1980.

External links

Ville de Laval

See also

• List of Quebec regions