Montreal

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Montreal is the second largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the city is located, or Mont Réal as it was spelled in Middle French. The language most spoken at home in the city is French by 52.4% of the population, followed by English at 12.5%. Montreal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the world, after Paris. Although a few francophone African cities are bigger in size, such as Algiers, Kinshasa, and Abidjan, it is agreed that none of these cities have a significant number of mother-tongue French speakers. Montreal is consistently rated as one of the world's most livable cities, was called "Canada's Cultural Capital" by Monocle Magazine and recently was named a UNESCO City of Design.

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