Island of Montreal in the context of "Ottawa River"

Montreal (French: Montréal) is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest in Canada, and the eighth-largest in North America. Founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it now takes its name from Mount Royal, the triple-peaked mountain around which the early settlement was built. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal and a few, much smaller, peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It lies 196 km (122 mi) east of the national capital, Ottawa, and 258 km (160 mi) southwest of the provincial capital, Quebec City.

As of the 2021 Canadian census the city had a population of 1,762,949, and a metropolitan population of 4,291,732, making it the second-largest metropolitan area in Canada. French is the city's official language. In 2021, 85.7% of the population of the city of Montreal considered themselves fluent in French while 90.2% could speak it in the metropolitan area. Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada, with 58.5% of the population able to speak both French and English. Montreal is the largest primarily French speaking city in the Americas.

Fort Ville-Marie was a French fortress and settlement established in May 1642 by a company of French settlers, led by Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, on the Island of Montreal in the Saint Lawrence River at the confluence of the Ottawa River, in what is today the province of Quebec, Canada. Its name is French for "City of Mary", a reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

It is the historic nucleus around which the original settlement of Montreal grew. The settlement became a centre for the fur trade and French expansion into North America until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which ended the French and Indian War and ceded the territory of New France to Britain. Given its importance, the site of the fort was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1924.

Île Bizard (French pronunciation: [il bizaʁ]) is an island near the Island of Montreal in the Hochelaga Archipelago region. It is one of the three populated islands within the city of Montreal, along with the Island of Montreal and Nuns' Island (Île des Soeurs). The island is served by buses 207 and 407.

The South Shore (French: Rive-Sud) is the general term for the suburbs of Montreal, Quebec located on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite the Island of Montreal. The South Shore is located within the Quebec administrative region of Montérégie.

The largest city on the South Shore area is Longueuil.

Outremont (French pronunciation: [utʁəmɔ̃]) is an affluent residential borough (arrondissement) of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It consists entirely of the former city on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec. The neighbourhood is inhabited largely by Francophones, and is also home to a Hasidic Jewish community. Since the 1950s, Outremont has been mostly residential, but some streets such as Van Horne, Bernard and Laurier have many commercial buildings.

The neighborhood's major commercial streets are Laurier Avenue, Bernard Avenue, and Van Horne Avenue.