Vaughan

Sister cities

• Yangzhou
• Lanciano
• Yakutsk
• Sanjō-shi
• Delia
• Ramla
• Sora

History

In the late pre-contact period, the Huron-Wendat people populated what is today Vaughan. The Skandatut ancestral Wendat village overlooked the east branch of the Humber River (Pine Valley Drive) and was once home to approximately 2,000 Huron in the sixteenth century. The site is close to a Huron ossuary (mass grave) uncovered in Kleinburg in 1970, and one kilometre north of the Seed-Barker Huron site. The first European to pass through Vaughan was the French explorer Étienne Brûlé, who traversed the Humber Trail in 1615. However, it was not until townships were created in 1792 that Vaughan began to see European settlements, as it was considered to be extremely remote and the lack of roads through the region made travel difficult. Despite the hardships of pioneer life, settlers came to Vaughan in considerable numbers. The population grew from 19 men, 5 women, and 30 children in 1800 to 4,300 in 1840. The first people to arrive were mainly Pennsylvania Germans, with a smaller number of families of English descent and a group of French Royalists. This migration from the United States was by 1814 superseded by immigrants from Britain. While many of their predecessors had been agriculturalists, the newer immigrants were highly skilled tradespeople, useful for a growing community. Among the facilities established by this group were a number of hamlets, the oldest of which was Thornhill, where a sawmill was erected in 1801, a grist mill in 1815, and had a population of 300 by 1836. Other such enclaves included Kleinburg, Coleraine, Rupertville(Maple), Richmond Hill, Teston, Claireville, Pine Grove, Carrville, Patterson, Burlington, Concord, Edgeley, Fisherville, Elder's Mills, Elgin Mills, Jefferson, Nashville, Purpleville, Richvale, Sherwood, Langstaff, Vellore, and…

Geography

Vaughan is bounded by Caledon and Brampton to the west, King and Richmond Hill to the north, Markham and Richmond Hill to the east, and Toronto — in the dissolved cities of Etobicoke and North York, to the south. The city is made up of nearly a dozen historic communities. Likely as a result of the municipality being established when it was still largely a rural area with scattered settlements, most residents (and even non-residents) identify more with the larger communities than they do with the city as a whole and have greatly expanded their areas, and the City officially designates five in the urban area as major communities, with all of the built-up areas of the city considered as being within one of them. This includes corporations such as Bell Canada, which uses the original community rate centres and lists them separately in the phone book, resulting in local calling areas being different throughout the city. *Woodbridge: North/South - Major Mackenzie/Steeles, East/West - Hwy 400/Hwy 50 *Maple: North/South - King Vaughan Line/Rutherford, East/West - Bathurst/Hwy 400 *Thornhill: North/South - Hwys. 7 and 407 (Major Mackenzie for the area west of Bathurst)/Steeles, East/West - Yonge/Dufferin *Concord: North/South - Rutherford/Steeles, East/West - Dufferin/Hwy 400 *Kleinburg: North/South - King Vaughan Line/Major Mackenzie, East/West - Hwy 400/Hwy 50 The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC) is a 179-hectare (442 acre) city centre under development around the intersection of Highway 7 and Jane Street, at the site of the former hamlet of Edgeley. When the Township of Vaughan officially became a town in 1971, it was made up of four historic communities (Maple, Kleinburg, Thornhill and Woodbridge) large enough to have their own village or town centres. Vaughan…

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  83,445
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  75,275
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  62,871
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  61,256
• American Goldfinch

  Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  52,860
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  48,529
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  47,630
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  47,446

Most recent

• M 4.1 — 2026-01-28
  24 km ESE of Orillia, Canada
• M 3 — 2018-05-08
  14 km SSE of Ajax, Canada
• M 2.52 — 2017-07-11
  11 km NNW of Barker, New York
• M 2.46 — 2014-02-13
  34 km N of Lyndonville, New York
• M 2.7 — 2009-12-21
  10 km NNE of Olcott, New York
• M 2.58 — 2009-09-20
  20 km ESE of Oakville, Canada