Montreal

Montreal, or Montréal in French, (pronounced /ˌmʌntɹiˈɑːl/ in Canadian English,/mɒ̃ʀeal/ in Quebec French, and /mɔ̃ʀeal/ in European French) is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie (literally 'City-Mary', translated 'Mary's City' or 'City of Mary'), the city had come to be known as Montréal by the end of the 17th century, a name derived from the French Mont Royal ("Mount Royal"), the name of the three-head hill at the heart of the city.

Formerly the largest metropolis of Canada (a distinction acquired by Toronto in the mid-1970s), it is the second-largest French-speaking city in the Western world after Paris. As of the 2006 Canadian Census, 1,620,693 people resided in the city of Montreal proper. The population of the Montreal Census Metropolitan Area (also known as Greater Montreal Area) was 3,635,571 at the same 2006 census. In 2007, Montreal was ranked as the 10th cleanest city in the world (in an eight-way tie for 10th place with Geneva, Switzerland; Nurnberg, Germany; Pittsburgh, PA; Lexington, KY; Boston, MA; Vancouver, BC and Bern, Switzerland) by a writer for Forbes magazine.