The
city steadily grew during the nineteenth
century, becoming one of the main destinations
of immigrants to Canada. In the second
half of the twentieth century Toronto
surpassed Montreal as the economic capital
of Canada and as its largest city. Toronto
is one of the most multicultural cities
in the world. There is an urban legend
among Torontonians that UNESCO has proclaimed
the city as the world's most multicultural
city, but ranking or proclaiming cities
as the most multicultural is not a practice
that UNESCO has ever undertaken. According
to the metropolitan census, the majority
of Torontonians claim their ethnic origin
to be from England, Ireland, Scotland
and Wales, either in whole or in part.
However there are hundreds of thousands
of Chinese, Italian, Vietnamese, Tamil,
French, and German populations.
Almost
half of Canada's Black population lives
in Toronto, representing a significant
fraction of the total population. Due
to the variety of the ethnic origins of
Torontonians, there are enclaves of Italian,
Irish, Portuguese, Greek, Polish, Russian,
Asian, and Chinese peoples, creating a
unique combination of communities that
are often strikingly different from one
another. Because of the diversity in the
city, some 1.6 million non-Whites or 40%
of Canada's minority population live in
Toronto alone. Out of the 1.6 million
non-Whites, almost 1.2 million originate
from the Asian continent alone. The racial
makeup of Toronto which includes the old
(pre-amalgamated) cities of Toronto, Etobicoke,
North York, Scarborough, York and the
borough of East York as of the 2001. Almost
20% of the population is under 14 years
of age, whereas those who are over 65
constitute 11.2% of the population.
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