This glossary defines 48 terms that appear in the history of Toronto and Ontario, from Anishinaabek to York. Each definition rests on a named source, and most entries link to the article on this site that treats the term in full. Where sources give different dates or numbers, both are shown.
6
The 6ix
The 6ix is an informal nickname for Toronto created and popularized by the hip hop community, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Hip Hop Slang at the University of British Columbia. The rapper Drake helped spread it but did not coin it. See the origin of the nickname.
A
Amalgamation
On January 1, 1998, the six municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto (Toronto, Etobicoke, North York, East York, York, and Scarborough) were amalgamated into one City of Toronto, and Metro ceased to exist, according to the City of Toronto Archives. Census counts before and after that date describe different areas. See where Toronto begins and ends.
Anishinaabek
The Anishinaabek, along with the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee, are named by the Ontario Heritage Trust as peoples of the traditional territory that includes Toronto. The Mississaugas, an Anishinaabe nation, moved into the north shore of Lake Ontario in the late 17th century and were the people the Crown dealt with when British officials arrived. See Toronto’s Indigenous history.
Annexation
In Toronto’s growth, annexation meant a village or township outside the city asking to join it, usually to obtain water, sewers, and paved roads. According to the historian J. M. S. Careless, summarized in the neighbourhoods article, City Council agreed when the area promised tax revenue. See how Toronto’s districts took shape.
B
Battle of York
The Battle of York was fought on April 27, 1813, during the War of 1812, when American forces landed and took the town. Retreating British troops blew up the fort’s powder magazine, and the explosion killed and wounded soldiers on both sides and killed the American general Zebulon Pike. See Fort York and the Battle of York.
C
Carrying Place
The Toronto Carrying Place was a portage route linking Lake Ontario with Lake Simcoe and the northern Great Lakes, and it followed the Humber River. A City of Toronto planning document places Huron-Wendat ancestors in villages near its trails. See the origin of the name Toronto.
Census metropolitan area
A census metropolitan area (CMA) is a Statistics Canada unit built around a core, with a total population of at least 100,000 and a core of at least 50,000, plus neighbouring municipalities tied to the core by commuting. The Toronto CMA had 6,202,225 people in the 2021 census, while the City of Toronto alone had an estimated 3,358,275 in 2026. See the article on Toronto’s boundaries.
Clergy Reserves
The Constitutional Act of 1791 set aside land in Upper Canada for a “Protestant clergy,” and sources describe the share as one-seventh of public lands. The reserves could only be leased, not sold, and they became a long political grievance: reformers such as George Brown opposed public funding of them, and John Beverley Robinson defended them. Legislation in 1854 moved to end the arrangement, though one Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry dates secularization to 1857. See John Strachan.
Concession road
A concession road was one of the survey lines that divided early land grants into farm lots. Queen Street was a concession road once called Lot Street, according to City of Toronto heritage studies, and surveyors in the 1790s laid out the line of today’s Danforth Avenue as the Second Concession Road. See Parkdale.
Confederation
Confederation was the union of British North American colonies into the Dominion of Canada, which took effect on July 1, 1867. George Brown of the Toronto Globe backed a federal union and joined the Great Coalition announced on June 22, 1864. See George Brown.
Conservation authority
A conservation authority is a watershed body created under Ontario’s Conservation Authorities Act, which dates from 1946. After Hurricane Hazel in October 1954, the law was amended so that authorities could acquire and regulate land, and the Metropolitan Toronto and Region Conservation Authority was formed in 1957 by merging four smaller ones, according to Environment Canada’s archive. Other sources place the legal changes in 1956. See Toronto’s elevation and topography.
Constitutional Act, 1791
The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Upper Canada received an appointed Legislative Council and an elected Legislative Assembly, and John Graves Simcoe, its first lieutenant governor, received his commission on September 12, 1791. See John Graves Simcoe.
D
Demonym (Torontonian)
A person from Toronto is called a Torontonian, a form recorded by the Language Portal of Canada. The same portal entry also covers Hogtown, GTA, and Metro. See Toronto slang, nicknames, and pronunciation.
F
Family Compact
The Family Compact was a derogatory nickname for a tightly connected circle that held sway over government, business, church, and courts in Upper Canada in the early to mid-1800s, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. Its leading figures were John Beverley Robinson and John Strachan. Marshall Spring Bidwell first used the term in an 1828 letter, and William Lyon Mackenzie popularized it in 1833. See John Beverley Robinson.
Fever sheds
Fever sheds were temporary buildings put up in the summer of 1847 beside the hospital at King and John Streets to hold Irish famine migrants sick with typhus. A plaque records 863 deaths in the sheds that summer, and Toronto received nearly 40,000 newcomers in a town of about 20,000. See the 1847 typhus epidemic.
Fort Rouillé
Fort Rouillé, also called Fort Toronto, was a French trading post on the lakeshore at what is now Exhibition Place. Sources give its construction as 1750 or 1751, and its garrison destroyed it in July 1759, according to the Ontario Heritage Trust plaque as summarized on this site. See the Canadian National Exhibition.
Forward sortation area
The forward sortation area (FSA) is the first three characters of a Canadian postal code. For Toronto addresses the first letter is M, which Canada Post ties to Metropolitan Toronto, and the area name identifies a major geographic area used for the first sorting of mail. See Toronto postal codes and area codes.
G
Greater Toronto Area (GTA)
The Greater Toronto Area is a planning and everyday name for the City of Toronto together with the regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, Peel, and York, according to provincial policy documents quoted by the Neptis Foundation. It is not a municipality. The wider Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area counted 7,281,694 people in 2021. See the article on Toronto’s boundaries.
H
Haudenosaunee
The Haudenosaunee, a confederacy that includes the Seneca, are named by the Ontario Heritage Trust among the peoples of the Toronto area. In the 17th century the Seneca founded two villages, Teiaiagon near the Humber River and Ganatsekwyagon near the Rouge River, and both were abandoned by 1687. See Toronto’s Indigenous history.
Heritage conservation district
A heritage conservation district protects the character of an area as a whole, not a single building, and is established by a municipal by-law under the Ontario Heritage Act. The first part of Cabbagetown became one in 2002. See heritage designation in Toronto.
Heritage register
The City of Toronto describes its heritage register as a publicly accessible record that lists every designated property, including those inside heritage conservation districts, and may also list properties that are not designated but are believed to have heritage value. It is kept under section 27 of the Ontario Heritage Act. See the heritage register article.
Hogtown
Hogtown is a nickname for Toronto recorded by the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles at the University of British Columbia, alongside Cowtown and T-dot. The Language Portal of Canada also lists it among the city’s nicknames. See Toronto slang and nicknames.
Huron-Wendat
The Huron-Wendat are the people whose ancestors, according to a City of Toronto planning document, farmed in large year-round villages near the trails of the Toronto Carrying Place. By about 1600 they had formed a confederation, and most villages had moved north toward Georgian Bay, away from Lake Ontario. See Toronto’s Indigenous history.
L
Lake Iroquois
Glacial Lake Iroquois stood higher than today’s Lake Ontario after the last ice sheet retreated, and much of downtown Toronto stands on its former bed. Its old shoreline survives as a bluff, and Davenport Road follows an Indigenous trail along it between the Don and Humber valleys. See Toronto’s elevation and topography.
Lieutenant governor
In the colonial period the lieutenant governor was the Crown’s representative in Upper Canada. John Graves Simcoe, the first, laid out the town of York in August 1793, and the City of Toronto Archives gives August 27, 1793 as its founding date. See John Graves Simcoe.
Lost rivers
“Lost rivers” is the common name for Toronto creeks that were buried in sewers as the city grew. Garrison and Taddle creeks were put underground from the 1880s, while the Humber and the Don stayed open. See Toronto’s lost rivers and ravines.
M
Metropolitan Toronto (Metro)
Metropolitan Toronto was a regional federation of municipalities created in 1953 with 13 members, reduced to six on January 1, 1967. Sources date the start differently: one gives April 2, 1953 for the act and January 1, 1954 for its powers, and the City of Toronto Archives account used on this site gives April 15, 1953. Metro ended with amalgamation on January 1, 1998. See the article on Toronto’s boundaries.
Mississaugas of the Credit
The Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation is the Anishinaabe nation that held the north shore of Lake Ontario by about 1700 and made the agreements with the Crown that cover the site of Toronto. Canada settled its specific claim over the Toronto Purchase in 2010 for CAD 145 million, together with a second claim. See the Toronto Purchase.
O
Ontario Heritage Act
The Ontario Heritage Act is the provincial law under which municipalities protect heritage properties. According to the Ontario government’s guide, individual designation falls under section 29 in Part IV, and municipal heritage conservation districts are a separate, area-based tool. See heritage designation in Toronto.
Orange Order
The Orange Order founded its first Grand Lodge in British North America at Brockville in 1830, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. The same source says almost every Toronto mayor between 1850 and 1950 was a member. See the article on civic life and social movements.
Overlay (area code)
An overlay places a new area code over the same territory as an existing one instead of splitting the area in two. Area code 647 began in March 2001 as the first overlay in Canada and was layered over 416, which dates from 1947. See Toronto’s area codes.
P
Park lot
Park lots were long narrow properties laid out north from the lake beyond the early town. William Allan bought one in 1819, and his Moss Park lot ran roughly 2.4 km (1.5 miles) from today’s Richmond Street to Bloor Street. See William Allan.
Province of Canada
The Province of Canada was created by the Act of Union of 1841, which joined Upper and Lower Canada after Lord Durham’s report of 1839. Its legislature was the setting for the 1864 deadlock that led to Confederation talks. See the 1837 rebellion and what followed.
Q
Queen’s Park
Queen’s Park is a public park dedicated on September 11, 1860, by Edward, Prince of Wales, and the site of the Ontario Legislative Building, which opened officially on April 4, 1893. Because the legislature sits there, the name is also used as shorthand for the Government of Ontario. See Queen’s Park and the Legislative Building.
Queen’s Rangers
The Queen’s Rangers were a loyalist corps that John Graves Simcoe commanded from 1777. In Upper Canada the Queen’s Rangers cut Dundas Street in 1793 and 1794 and worked on the military road that became Yonge Street, whose completion was announced on February 20, 1796. See Yonge Street and Dundas Street.
R
Rebellion of 1837
The Rebellion of 1837 was a short armed uprising led by William Lyon Mackenzie against the colonial government of Upper Canada. Rebels gathered at Montgomery’s Tavern on Yonge Street and were scattered by militia and volunteers on December 7, 1837, and Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews were hanged on April 12, 1838. See the 1837 rebellion.
Reeve
In the former townships around Toronto, reeve was the title of the elected head of council. Peter Secor was the first reeve of Scarborough Township, and R. F. Hicks was reeve of the first North York council, elected in August 1922. See Scarborough and North York.
Responsible government
Responsible government is the principle that the governor acts on the advice of ministers who hold the confidence of the elected assembly. The La Fontaine-Baldwin ministry that took office on March 11, 1848, put it into practice in the Province of Canada, though one scholar argues the principle was in place by 1841. See Robert Baldwin.
S
Streetcar
Toronto’s public transit began with horse-drawn streetcars on September 11, 1861, and switched to electric streetcars from August 15, 1892. The Toronto Transportation Commission brought the system under public ownership on September 1, 1921. See the history of public transit in Toronto.
T
Temperance Act (Ontario)
The Ontario Temperance Act banned the sale of liquor as a drink across Ontario. It received royal assent on April 27, 1916, took effect on September 16, 1916, and was replaced in 1927 by the Liquor Control Act, which created the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. See the Ontario Temperance Act of 1916.
Tkaronto
Tkaronto is the older form of the name that some Indigenous writers and groups have used in place of Toronto since about 2020. It is a recent usage and does not change the official name. See the origin of the name Toronto.
Toronto Purchase
The Toronto Purchase is the transaction by which the Crown acquired land under present-day Toronto from the Mississaugas of the Credit. British records date a first agreement to September 23, 1787, but the deed was blank, and the boundaries were set in an indenture of August 1, 1805. See the Toronto Purchase.
Township
A township was a rural municipality surveyed outside the city, such as York Township, laid out in the 1790s, or the Township of East York, incorporated on January 1, 1924. Many townships later joined the city by annexation or became part of Metropolitan Toronto. See East York.
Treaty 13
Treaty 13 is the registered name for the indenture of August 1, 1805, in which the Crown paid ten shillings for the Toronto tract signed at the River Credit. The Mississaugas of the Credit disputed how much land it covered, and Canada settled the claim in 2010. See the Toronto Purchase.
U
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was the network of Black and white Americans and Canadians who helped people escaping slavery reach Canada. A Toronto exhibit cited on this site estimates that 30,000 to 40,000 African Americans fled to Canada between 1793 and 1865, though no census recorded who arrived as a refugee. See Black history in Toronto.
Upper Canada
Upper Canada was the British colony that later became Ontario, created by the Constitutional Act of 1791. York replaced Niagara as its capital, and it was united with Lower Canada in 1841. See the overview of Toronto’s history.
W
The Ward
“The Ward” was the informal name for St. John’s Ward, an area of early Toronto where many arrivals settled. A city map of 1857 shows four Black churches close together there, where many residents were refugees from slavery. See immigration and communities in Toronto.
Y
York
York was the name given to the settlement that John Graves Simcoe laid out in 1793, in honor of Prince Frederick, Duke of York, according to several secondary histories. The City of Toronto was incorporated on March 6, 1834, and the older name returned. See the origin of the name Toronto.
Frequently asked questions
Where do these definitions come from?
Each entry draws on sources named in the entry or in the list below, such as the Canadian Encyclopedia, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Statistics Canada, the City of Toronto, and the Ontario Heritage Trust. The linked articles give the full source lists.
Why do some dates differ between entries and other sites?
Archives and encyclopedias sometimes date the same event differently, as with the start of Metropolitan Toronto or the end of the Clergy Reserves. This glossary shows the difference instead of choosing one.
How can a missing term be suggested?
Readers can use the contact page, and the editorial policy and about page explains how corrections are handled.
Last verified: October 2026
Related reading
- An overview of Toronto’s history
- Toronto timeline
- Where Toronto is: location, boundaries, and what counts as Toronto
- Toronto’s heritage register and designation
- Toronto’s Indigenous history
Sources
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, entries on the Family Compact, Clergy Reserves, and the Orange Order in Toronto
- Dictionary of Canadian Biography, biographies cited in the linked articles
- Statistics Canada, Census Dictionary (census metropolitan area) and 2021 census counts
- Ontario government, Designating Heritage Properties
- City of Toronto and City of Toronto Archives, heritage register pages, planning backgrounders, and exhibits
- Ontario Heritage Trust, plaques and territory acknowledgment pages
- Canada Post, addressing guidelines; Language Portal of Canada; University of British Columbia dictionaries of Canadianisms and hip hop slang
Cite this page
APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 23). Glossary of Toronto and Ontario History Terms. http://localhost:8210/toronto-history-glossary
MLA: “Glossary of Toronto and Ontario History Terms.” History of Toronto, 23 Oct. 2026, http://localhost:8210/toronto-history-glossary. Accessed .
Chicago: History of Toronto. “Glossary of Toronto and Ontario History Terms.” Last modified October 23, 2026. http://localhost:8210/toronto-history-glossary.
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