Verdun (Montreal)

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Verdun
Location of Verdun in Montreal
city Montreal
surface 9.7 km²
Residents 66,158  (2011)
native language French : 62.4%
English : 16.8%
Other: 20.8%
Community number REM12
Website Arrondissement

Verdun is one of the 19 arrondissements of the city of Montreal in the Canadian province of Québec . Before 2002 it was a separate municipality. In 2011 the 9.7 km² district had 66,158 inhabitants.

geography

Verdun is located in the south-east of the Île de Montréal , on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River at the Lachine rapids and close to the city center. The district also includes an offshore island, the Île des Sœurs three kilometers long and one kilometer wide , which is separated from the main part of the district by a 300 meter wide river arm. Neighboring arrondissements of the city of Montreal are Le Sud-Ouest in the north and west and LaSalle in the south-west.

history

After Montreal, Verdun is the oldest settlement on the Île de Montréal. In 1665, Governor Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve had the Côte-des-Argoulets fortress built near the rapids to protect the city of Montreal from attacks by the Iroquois . A small village called Rivière-Saint-Pierre arose around the fortress, named after a stream that now runs underground. The village became an independent municipality in 1875 and took the name Verdun the following year. This name goes back to 1671, when the officer Zacharie Dupuis received a fiefdom in the vicinity. Dupuis named his estate Verdun, in memory of his French hometown Saverdun (now in the Ariège department ). Due to the strong population growth, the community achieved city status in 1907.

The Île des Sœurs was originally called Île Saint-Paul, named after Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve. The current name first appeared in the middle of the 19th century, at that time still in the English form Nuns' Island (Island of the Nuns), and finally caught on around 1950. This name is a reference to the Congrégation de Notre-Dame de Montréal , a religious order founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys , which from 1706 owned part of the island. In 1899 the municipality of L'Île-Saint-Paul was founded, which merged with Verdun in 1956. On January 1, 2002, Verdun merged with Montreal and has since formed an arrondissement.

population

According to the 2011 census, Verdun had 66,158 inhabitants, which corresponds to a population density of 6820 inhabitants / km². Of the respondents, 62.4% said they were French and 16.8% English as their mother tongue. Other important languages ​​include Chinese (4.0%), Spanish (4.3%) and Arabic (2.5%).

Attractions

Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs church

Personalities

Web links

Commons : Verdun  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Verdun. Commission de toponymie Québec, accessed September 2, 2011 (French).
  2. ↑ Île des Sœurs. Commission de toponymie Québec, accessed September 2, 2011 (French).
  3. ↑ Annuaire statistique de l'agglomération de Montréal, recensement de 2011. (PDF, 728 kB) City Council of Montreal, Statistics Canada, 2011, accessed on February 25, 2014 (French, Statistical Yearbook of the Agglomeration of Montreal 2011).

Coordinates: 45 ° 27 ′ 37 "  N , 73 ° 34 ′ 2"  W.