Laval, Quebec

Laval (; ) is a city in Quebec, Canada. It is in the southwest of the province, north of Montreal. It is the largest suburb of Montreal, the third-largest city in the province after Montreal and Quebec City, and the thirteenth largest city in Canada with a population of 422,993 in 2016.

Laval is geographically separated from the mainland to the north by the Rivière des Mille Îles, and from the Island of Montreal to the south by the Rivière des Prairies. Laval occupies all of Île Jésus as well as the Îles Laval.

Laval forms its own administrative region in Quebec which constitutes the 13th region of the 17 administrative regions of Quebec as well as a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) and census division (CD) with geographical code 65. It also constitutes the judicial district of Laval.

History

The first European Settlers in Laval were Jesuits, who were granted a seigneury there in 1636. Agriculture first appeared in Laval in 1670. In 1675, François de Montmorency-Laval gained control of the seigneury. In 1702 a parish municipality was founded, and dedicated to Saint-François de Sales (not to be confused with the modern-day Saint-François-de-Sales in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean).

In 1845, after nearly 200 years being of a rural nature, additional municipalities began to be created. The only built-up area on the island, Sainte-Rose, was incorporated as a village in 1850, and it remained the main community for the remainder of the century. With the dawn of the 20th century came urbanization. Laval-des-Rapides became Laval's first city in 1912, followed by , which was granted village status three years later. Laval-sur-le-Lac was founded in the same year and had its tourist-based economy based on Montrealers. Laval began to grow throughout the following years because its proximity to Montreal made it an ideal suburb.

To deal with problems caused by urbanization, amalgamations occurred; L'Abord-à-Plouffe amalgamated with and Saint-Martin, creating the city of Chomedey in 1961. The amalgamation turned out to be so successful for the municipalities involved that the Quebec government decided to amalgamate the whole island into a single city of Laval in 1965, not without controversy. Laval was named after the first owner of Île Jésus, François de Montmorency-Laval, the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec. At the time, Laval had a population of 170,000. Laval became a Regional County Municipality in 1980. Until then, it had been the County of Laval.

The 14 municipalities, which existed prior to the incorporation of the amalgamated City of Laval on 6 August 1965, were:

Geography

The island has developed over time, with most of the urban area in the central region and along the south and west river banks.

Laval is bordered on the south by Montreal across the Rivière des Prairies, on the north by Les Moulins Regional County Municipality and by Thérèse-De Blainville Regional County Municipality and on the west by Deux-Montagnes Regional County Municipality across the Rivière des Mille Îles.

Climate

Laval experiences a four season humid continental climate (Koppen: Dfb) with very warm summers and very cold winters with adequate precipitation year round, though more so during summer and early fall.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Laval had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
According to the 2016 Census, the population of Laval was an estimated 422,993, a 5.3 percent increase from the earlier census in 2011. Women constituted 51.4% of the total population. Children under 14 years of age totalled 17.4%, while 17.2% of the population was of retirement age (65 years of age and older). The median age was calculated as 41.9 years.

Ethnicity

Immigration

Language

Laval is linguistically diverse. The 2011 census found that French was the sole mother tongue of 60.8% of the population, and was spoken most often at home by 65.2% of residents. The next most common mother tongues were English (7.0%), Arabic (5.6%), Italian (4.2%), Greek (3.5%), Spanish (2.9%), Armenian (1.7%), Creoles (1.6%), Romanian (1.3%) and Portuguese (1.3%).

Religion

According to the 2021 census, religious groups in Laval included:
*Christianity (280,720 persons or 65.4%)
*Irreligion (77,165 persons or 18.0%)
*Islam (55,620 persons or 12.9%)
*Buddhism (5,940 persons or 1.4%)
*Hinduism (4,140 persons or 1.0%)
*Judaism (2,435 persons or 0.6%)
*Sikhism (2,235 persons or 0.5%)
* Indigenous Spirituality (10 persons or <0.1%)
*Other (1,280 persons or 0.3%)

Government

Municipal politics

The city's longtime mayor, Gilles Vaillancourt, resigned on 9 November 2012, following allegations of corruption made against him in hearings of the provincial Charbonneau Commission. City councillor Basile Angelopoulos served as acting mayor"Laval searches for interim mayor"
CBC News, 13 November 2012. until Alexandre Duplessis was selected in a council vote on 23 November. Duplessis, in turn, stepped down after just seven months in office after facing allegations of being implicated in a prostitution investigation;"Laval mayor Alexandre Duplessis resigns"
''The Gazette'', 28 June 2013. he was succeeded by city councillor Martine Beaugrand until the city's new mayor, Marc Demers