Most of the region that is Ontario is the Canadian Shield but in the south, where most of the population lives there is the Great Lakes Lowlands and the Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north. There are many rivers and about 250,000 lakes in Ontario.
Etienne Brule was the first European in the territory known as Ontario. He visited Huronia and Lake Huron in 1610 and 1612. Samuel de champlain also explored southern Ontario. The Southern part of Ontario was French and the North near Hudson Bay was both British and French until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 made it property of the British Crown. In 1763 the Seven Years War came to an end giving Canada to Great Britain. It became part of the Province of Quebec after the Quebec Act. After the American Revolution, Many British Loyalist settled into "Ontario" and that area became primarily English since it was the least inhabited part of Quebec. Because of the great number of Loyalists, Quebec split into two Colonies called Upper Canada (Quebec) and Lower Canada (Ontario), in 1791. In 1812, the United States of America declared war on the Colonies of British North America and concentrated on Upper Canada. In 1836-37, came a rebellion in Lower Canada and soon latter Upper and Lower Canada became the Colony of Canada. Plans for a Dominion were made in 1867 and Canada joined separating into two provinces of the Dominion of Canada, Ontario and Quebec. At the end of the 1800s many Ontario farmers left for the Prairies and into the United States. Prosperity grew because of lumber and minerals in the north and the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959.
Ontario is the most prosperous province in the whole of the nation. Half of Canada's manufacturing goods, a third of its agricultural wealth and a fourth of mineral riches are from Ontario. The City of Toronto (once Metropolitan Toronto) is the greatest centre in Canada and one of the biggest centres in North America. The Manufacturing of cars can be found in Oshawa, Oakville and Windsor (obviously, Windsor is near Detroit). Mining is very important to Northern Ontario's economy.
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