Montreal Island

The Island of Montreal (in French île de Montréal) is a Canadian island located in the extreme southwest of the French-speaking province of Quebec, between the Rivière des Prairies and the St. Lawrence River, at the confluence of this river with the Ottawa. The Island of Montreal is the largest island of the Hochelaga archipelago with 499 km².

Name

The first French name for the island was "l'ille de Vilmenon," noted by Samuel de Champlain on a map of 1616, and derived from the lord of Vilmenon, patron saint of the founders of Quebec at the court of Louis XIII. However, in 1632 Champlain referred to the island as "Mont-real" (Spanish: Monte real) (spelled mont Royal in contemporary French) on another map. This name gradually extended to the name of the city, which had originally been called Ville-Marie (Villa Maria).

Demographics

The island of Montreal in 2007 had about 1.8 million inhabitants, of whom about three-quarters (1.6 million) were from the city of Montreal. The island of Montreal has almost a quarter of the total population of Quebec. It constitutes one of the 17 administrative regions of Quebec. This is the most populous administrative region of Quebec, while also being one of the two smallest regions in size (the smallest being the Laval region).

Languages

57% of the inhabitants of the island of Montreal are French-speaking, 18% are English-speaking (the latter group is concentrated in the west of the island) and 25% are speakers of other languages (allophones).