History of TorontoSourced history of Toronto, Ontario

How Toronto’s Neighborhoods Grew, From Village to District

Updated · 9 min read

Toronto’s neighborhoods grew in layers: a settlement named York in 1793, a city incorporated on March 6, 1834, and a chain of suburbs annexed between 1883 and 1912, with smaller additions into 1967. Yorkville joined the city on February 1, 1883, The Annex on January 3, 1887, and Deer Park on December 15, 1908, while immigrant districts such as Kensington Market and Little Italy took shape in the early twentieth century. Each district took its character from who settled there, what industry or institution stood nearby, and when the city boundary reached it.

From town of York to a ring of villages

Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe named the settlement York in 1793 and made it the temporary capital of Upper Canada, according to The Canadian Encyclopedia. The same source says March 6, 1834, marked the founding of the city under the name Toronto, and that William Lyon Mackenzie won its first mayoral election on April 3. The early city was small and hugged the waterfront, so most of what are now districts were farms, country estates, or separate villages. The broader story is told in the overview of Toronto history; this article follows only how the districts took shape.

Suburban growth happened through annexation. The table below uses the University of Toronto Map and Data Library’s historical annexation boundaries (1834 to 1967), which record a name and a date for each annexed area. Names are those used in that dataset, and the dataset does not explain why each area joined.

Annexation timeline

Date Area annexed to the City of Toronto (name as in the dataset)
February 1, 1883 Yorkville
March 25, 1884 Brockton (including High Park) and Riverdale
January 3, 1887 The Annex, Rosedale, and a strip north of Queen Street
January 2, 1888 Area north of Bloor Street and west of Bathurst Street, Poplar Plains Road, and Sunnyside
March 23, 1889 Parkdale
January 1, 1906 North Rosedale
December 15, 1908 Deer Park, East Toronto, and the Baldwin Estate
February 1 and May 1, 1909 Wychwood and Bracondale (February 1); West Toronto (May 1)
December 15, 1909 Midway and Balmy Beach
December 15 and 16, 1912 North Toronto (December 15); Moore Park (December 16)
January 1, 1967 Forest Hill and Swansea

Some lists give 1905 for Rosedale; the dataset instead dates Rosedale to 1887 and North Rosedale to 1906. The City of Toronto exhibit on North York dates the municipal reorganization that cut Metropolitan Toronto’s 13 municipalities to six to January 1, 1967, and the amalgamation that created the single-tier City of Toronto to January 1, 1998.

Yorkville: first municipality annexed

A City of Toronto heritage report describes Yorkville as the first independent municipality annexed by the City of Toronto, in 1883. It says Yorkville was incorporated as a village in 1853 and became St. Paul’s Ward after annexation. The district’s later history is in the article on Yorkville.

The Annex

The dataset records the annexation of The Annex on January 3, 1887, the same day as Rosedale and a strip north of Queen Street. More detail is in the article on The Annex.

Cabbagetown: a name with two stories

The Cabbagetown Preservation Association says the name began in the 1840s, when newly arrived Irish immigrants grew cabbages in their front gardens and wealthier Torontonians elsewhere called the area Cabbagetown. It calls the area south of Gerrard Street the original Cabbagetown. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives a different timing and boundary: it describes a district bounded by the Don River, Parliament Street, Gerrard Street, and Queen Street, settled by working-class immigrants from Ireland and England between 1860 and 1880, and notes that urban renewal and subsidized housing in the 1950s changed its character. See Cabbagetown for the district itself.

Kensington Market and Little Italy: immigrant districts

Parks Canada says George Taylor Denison developed the land as the Bellevue Estate in 1815, that British and Irish immigrants settled there in the 1850s and 1860s, and that Jewish immigrants, mostly from Russia and eastern and south-central Europe, arrived in the early twentieth century and made it known for decades as the Jewish market. Portuguese immigrants arrived after the Second World War, along with newcomers from Italy, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia. The site’s designation year is given as 2005 in the heritage-value text and November 27, 2006, in the directory’s record. The longer account is in the article on Kensington Market.

Heritage Toronto says Italians were settling College Street west of Bathurst Street by the 1900s, with Salvatore Turano’s Mansfield Street grocery, boarding house, and labor agency drawing fellow townspeople. A survey found that over 60 percent of businesses on the surveyed stretch of College Street were Italian-owned or had Italian names by 1926, and the 1931 census counted 77 percent of Toronto’s Italians living in the area. By the late 1960s many families had moved north to Corso Italia and to suburbs such as Woodbridge and Vaughan. Read more in Little Italy.

Dundas Street and its name

On Wednesday, July 14, 2021, Toronto City Council voted 17 to 7 to remove Henry Dundas’s name from Dundas Street and other civic assets, according to Global News. The report said Dundas, an eighteenth-century British politician, is said to have slowed the end of slavery in Britain by 15 years, and that the City’s report also cited his role in the continued subjugation of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The change covered Yonge-Dundas Square and Dundas subway station, with an estimated cost of $5.1 million to $6.3 million, and a committee was to propose a new name by the second quarter of 2022. What happened afterward was not confirmed from an official source for this article, so readers should check the City of Toronto’s pages for the current status. See Dundas.

Queen’s Park: the institutional district

The Legislative Assembly of Ontario’s timeline says Richard A. Waite, a British-born architect who had also been a judge in the design competition, unveiled his own plans in 1885, that the government accepted them, that construction began in early 1886, and that the new Legislative Building opened officially on April 4, 1893. Details of the park are in Queen’s Park.

The Distillery District: an industrial quarter reborn

Parks Canada says the Gooderham and Worts Distillery, a complex of 30 brick and stone industrial buildings built between 1859 and 1927, was designated a national historic site in 1988, and that the site began in 1837 when a still was set up to turn surplus grain from an 1832 grist mill into whisky. The Lost Rivers project adds that production of the Gooderham and Worts brands ended in 1990 and that new owners bought the property in late 2001 and began a major restoration. The account is in the article on the Distillery District.

Forest Hill and the 1967 additions

The dataset lists Forest Hill and Swansea as annexed on January 1, 1967, the same date as the reorganization of Metropolitan Toronto’s municipalities. Older machine-written pages on this site covered Koreatown, Little Portugal, and Forest Hill, but most of their facts could not be confirmed and were removed. Parks Canada’s Kensington Market record is the verified link between Portuguese immigration after the Second World War and the Market district.

Where to research a specific district

The City of Toronto Archives holds records of former municipalities annexed to Toronto, and its page on resources for former municipalities is the place to start. Toronto Public Library’s Toronto Reference Library has local histories and city directories. The article on the heritage register explains how designation works.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Toronto annex so many suburbs?

The annexation dataset records dates and areas but not motives. City heritage documents for Parkdale say annexation in 1889 brought City services and a sharp rise in development, which suggests one reason, but this article does not claim a single cause for all areas. Yorkville in 1883 was the first, and most annexations followed between 1883 and 1912.

Which Toronto neighborhoods are the oldest?

The area around the original town of York, near the waterfront, is the oldest. Among the districts annexed later, Yorkville was the first, in 1883, and had been incorporated as a village in 1853. Dates vary by source for smaller areas.

Where did Cabbagetown get its name?

Both the Cabbagetown Preservation Association and The Canadian Encyclopedia say the name comes from cabbages grown in front yards. They differ on timing and boundaries: the association points to Irish immigrants in the 1840s and the area south of Gerrard Street, while the Encyclopedia describes settlement by immigrants from Ireland and England between 1860 and 1880.

When did Toronto stop annexing neighborhoods?

The dataset shows most annexations between 1883 and 1912, a few small additions in later decades (the last before 1967 was in 1954), and Forest Hill and Swansea on January 1, 1967. The old city then merged into the current single-tier City of Toronto on January 1, 1998.

More neighborhoods and former municipalities

For the full timeline, see An overview of Toronto history.

Sources

  1. Marcel Fortin, University of Toronto Map and Data Library, City of Toronto Historical Annexation Boundaries (1834 – 1967), Borealis, 2023 (shapefile with area names and annexation dates, read directly)
  2. The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Birth of Toronto
  3. City of Toronto, Heritage Property Research and Evaluation Report, William Sexton Houses, Scollard Street and Bay Street (Yorkville history section), 2016
  4. City of Toronto, online exhibit Progress, Economy & Heart: Mel Lastman (amalgamation, January 1, 1998)
  5. The Canadian Encyclopedia, Cabbagetown
  6. Cabbagetown Preservation Association, About Cabbagetown
  7. Parks Canada, Kensington Market National Historic Site of Canada, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations
  8. Heritage Toronto, Little Italy on College Street
  9. Parks Canada, Gooderham and Worts Distillery National Historic Site of Canada; Lost Rivers project, Historic Distillery District
  10. Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Timeline 1880 to 1909; Global News, Toronto city council votes to rename Dundas Street, July 14, 2021

Last verified: October 2026

Cite this page

APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 23). How Toronto’s Neighborhoods Grew, From Village to District. http://localhost:8210/blog/the-rich-and-diverse-history-of-toronto-neighbourhoods-unveiled-from-colonial-roots-to-modern-urban-gems

MLA: “How Toronto’s Neighborhoods Grew, From Village to District.” History of Toronto, 23 Oct. 2026, http://localhost:8210/blog/the-rich-and-diverse-history-of-toronto-neighbourhoods-unveiled-from-colonial-roots-to-modern-urban-gems. Accessed .

Chicago: History of Toronto. “How Toronto’s Neighborhoods Grew, From Village to District.” Last modified October 23, 2026. http://localhost:8210/blog/the-rich-and-diverse-history-of-toronto-neighbourhoods-unveiled-from-colonial-roots-to-modern-urban-gems.

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