Ontario is Canada 's second-largest province, and the most populous, with more than 14 million inhabitants. It is home to the Canadian capital city of Ottawa , and Toronto , which is Ontario's capital and Canada's largest city. Stretching from the shores of Hudson Bay an arm of the Arctic Ocean in the north to four of the five Great Lakes in the South and from Manitoba in the west to Quebec in the east, Ontario is truly massive at over a million square kilometres almost half a million square miles.
However most of that area is remote wilderness untouched by tourism, apart from camping, fishing, and hunting. Most visitors stay in the more densely populated southern part of the province which is at the same time a fertile farming region, Canada's main industrial area, and English Canada's political, media and cultural hub. The national capital, Ottawa, features numerous monuments and museums, of course.
The pre-eminent urban region, however, is Greater Toronto, the seventh most populous metropolitan area in North America with more than six million people or almost half of all Ontarians.
It isn't too much exaggeration to say that it is possible to see "the world in miniature" in Ontario, just by visiting its diverse urban neighbourhoods, and especially their range of different ethnic restaurants. However, even southern Ontario is known as much or more for its rural landscapes, particularly its clean lakes and rivers within a day's driving distance of Toronto, the so-called "cottage country" where many lakeside properties are available for short-term rentals, but also natural landmarks like Niagara Falls , and even a few wine regions in the southernmost regions of the province.
These are, together with Southwestern Ontario, described as "Southern Ontario". In addition to being Canada 's most populous province, Ontario is also a major tourist destination, especially around the Niagara Falls.
