Toronto is the biggest city in Canada and the capital of the province of Ontario. It sits on the north shore of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes, and it is where most of Canada's banks, money markets, and big companies keep their head offices.

A note on the dictionary line you may read: many books still call it the *second* largest city in Canada, because Montreal was bigger for a long time. Toronto passed it decades ago and is now clearly the largest. Older books have not all caught up.

What English speakers actually think of when they hear *Toronto*: a very mixed city. Something close to half the people living there were born in another country, and you can walk through a few streets and hear five or six languages. There is a large Chinese community, with more than one Chinatown, so Taiwanese students often know someone who studied or moved there. People also think of the CN Tower, of ice hockey (the Maple Leafs, who famously do not win), and of basketball (the Raptors, the only team in Canada).

Say it carefully, because this is where students give themselves away. Locals do not say all three syllables clearly. It comes out closer to "tuh-RON-oh" or even "TRON-oh" — the second *t* nearly vanishes. Saying "To-RON-TO" very neatly marks you as someone who learned the word from a book.

Also: Toronto is not the capital of Canada. That is Ottawa, a much smaller city. This trips up a lot of people, because the biggest city and the capital are the same place in so many countries — but not here, and not in the United States or Australia either.