Singapore
Singapore the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state in Southeast Asia. It lies one degree north of the equator, at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, with Indonesia's Riau Islands to the south and Peninsular Malaysia to the north. Singapore's territory consists of one main island along with 62 other islets. Since independence, extensive land reclamation has increased its total size by 23%; the country is known for its transition from a developing to a developed one in a single generation under the leadership of its founder Lee Kuan Yew. In 1819, Sir Stamford Raffles founded colonial Singapore as a trading post of the British East India Company. After the company's collapse in 1858, the islands were ceded to the British Raj as a crown colony. During the Second World War, Singapore was occupied by Japan, it gained independence from the British Empire in 1963 by joining Malaysia along with other former British territories, but separated two years over ideological differences, becoming a sovereign nation in 1965.
After early years of turbulence and despite lacking natural resources and a hinterland, the nation developed as an Asian Tiger economy, based on external trade and its workforce. Singapore is a global hub for education, finance, human capital, logistics, technology, tourism and transport; the city ranks in numerous international rankings, has been recognised as the most "technology-ready" nation, top International-meetings city, city with "best investment potential", world's smartest city, world's safest country, second-most competitive country, third least-corrupt country, third-largest foreign exchange market, third-largest financial centre, third-largest oil refining and trading centre, fifth-most innovative country, the second-busiest container port. The Economist has ranked Singapore as the most expensive city to live in, since 2013, it is identified as a tax haven. Singapore is the only country in Asia with an AAA sovereign rating from all major rating agencies, one of 11 worldwide. Globally, the Port of Singapore and Changi Airport have held the titles of leading "Maritime Capital" and "Best Airport" for consecutive years, while Singapore Airlines is the 2018 "World's Best Airline".
Singapore ranks 9th on the UN Human Development Index with the 3rd highest GDP per capita. It is placed in key social indicators: education, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety and housing. Although income inequality is high, 90% of homes are owner-occupied. According to the Democracy Index, the country is described as a "flawed democracy"; the city-state is home to 5.6 million residents, 39% of whom are foreign nationals, including permanent residents. There are four official languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil, its cultural diversity is reflected in major festivals. Pew Research has found. Multiracialism has been enshrined in its constitution since independence, continues to shape national policies in education, politics, among others. Singapore is a unitary parliamentary republic with a Westminster system of unicameral parliamentary government; the People's Action Party has won every election since self-government began in 1959. As one of the five founding members of ASEAN, Singapore is the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Secretariat and Pacific Economic Cooperation Council Secretariat, as well as many international conferences and events.
It is a member of the East Asia Summit, Non-Aligned Movement and the Commonwealth of Nations. The English name of Singapore is an anglicisation of the native Malay name for the country, in turn derived from Sanskrit, hence the customary reference to the nation as the Lion City, its inclusion in many of the nation's symbols. However, it is unlikely that lions lived on the island. There are however other suggestions for the origin of the name and scholars do not believe that the origin of the name is established; the central island has been called Pulau Ujong as far back as the third century CE "island at the end" in Malay. Singapore is referred to as the Garden City for its tree-lined streets and greening efforts since independence, the Little Red Dot for how the island-nation is depicted on many maps of the world and Asia, as a red dot. Singapore is referred to as the "Switzerland of Asia" in 2017 due to its neutrality on international and regional issues; the Greco-Roman astronomer Ptolemy identified a place called Sabana in the general area in the second century, the earliest written record of Singapore occurs in a Chinese account from the third century, describing the island of Pu Luo Chung.
This was itself a transliteration from the Malay name "Pulau Ujong", or "island at the end". The Nagarakretagama, a Javanese epic poem written in 1365, referred to a settlement on the island called Tumasik. In 1299, according to the Malay Annals, the Kingdom of Singapura was founded on the island by Sang Nila Utama. Although the historicity
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It stands on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec; as of 2016, Ottawa had a city population of 964,743 and a metropolitan population of 1,323,783 making it the fourth-largest city and the fifth-largest CMA in Canada. Founded in 1826 as Bytown, incorporated as Ottawa in 1855, the city has evolved into the political centre of Canada, its original boundaries were expanded through numerous annexations and were replaced by a new city incorporation and amalgamation in 2001 which increased its land area. The city name "Ottawa" was chosen in reference to the Ottawa River, the name of, derived from the Algonquin Odawa, meaning "to trade". Ottawa has the most educated population among Canadian cities and is home to a number of post-secondary and cultural institutions, including the National Arts Centre, the National Gallery, numerous national museums. Ottawa has the highest standard of living in low unemployment.
With the draining of the Champlain Sea around ten thousand years ago, the Ottawa Valley became habitable. Local populations used the area for wild edible harvesting, fishing, trade and camps for over 6500 years; the Ottawa river valley has archaeological sites with arrow heads and stone tools. Three major rivers meet within Ottawa, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years; the Algonquins called the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning "Great River" or "Grand River". Étienne Brûlé regarded as the first European to travel up the Ottawa River, passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls in the area and about his encounters with the Algonquins, using the Ottawa River for centuries. Many missionaries would follow the early traders; the first maps of the area used the word Ottawa, derived from the Algonquin word adawe, to name the river. Philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first settlement in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from the present day city of Ottawa in Hull.
He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, set about to create an agricultural community called Wrightsville. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City. Bytown, Ottawa's original name, was founded as a community in 1826 when hundreds of land speculators were attracted to the south side of the river when news spread that British authorities were constructing the northerly end of the Rideau Canal military project at that location; the following year, the town was named after British military engineer Colonel John By, responsible for the entire Rideau Waterway construction project. The canal's military purpose was to provide a secure route between Montreal and Kingston on Lake Ontario, bypassing a vulnerable stretch of the St. Lawrence River bordering the state of New York that had left re-supply ships bound for southwestern Ontario exposed to enemy fire during the War of 1812. Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of today's Parliament Hill.
He laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named "Upper Town" west of the canal and "Lower Town" east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes "Upper Town" was predominantly English speaking and Protestant whereas "Lower Town" was predominantly French and Catholic. Bytown's population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was being completed in 1832. Bytown encountered some impassioned and violent times in her early pioneer period that included Irish labour unrest that attributed to the Shiners' War from 1835 to 1845 and political dissension evident from the 1849 Stony Monday Riot. In 1855 Bytown was incorporated as a city. William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk guiding it through 36 years of development. On New Year's Eve 1857, Queen Victoria, as a symbolic and political gesture, was presented with the responsibility of selecting a location for the permanent capital of the Province of Canada. In reality, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had assigned this selection process to the Executive Branch of the Government, as previous attempts to arrive at a consensus had ended in deadlock.
The "Queen's choice" turned out to be the small frontier town of Ottawa for two main reasons: Firstly, Ottawa's isolated location in a back country surrounded by dense forest far from the Canada–US border and situated on a cliff face would make it more defensible from attack. Secondly, Ottawa was midway between Toronto and Kingston and Montreal and Quebec City. Additionally, despite Ottawa's regional isolation it had seasonal water transportation access to Montreal over the Ottawa River and to Kingston via the Rideau Waterway. By 1854 it had a modern all season Bytown and Prescott Railway that carried passengers and supplies the 82-kilometres to Prescott on the Saint Lawrence River and beyond. Ottawa's small size, it was thought, would make it less prone to rampaging politically motivated mobs, as had happened in the previous Canadian capitals; the government owned the land that would become Parliament Hill which they thought would be an ideal location for the Parliament Buildings. Ottawa was th
Singapore Changi Airport
Changi Airport is the major civilian airport for Singapore, one of the largest transportation hubs in Southeast Asia. It is rated the World's Best Airport by Skytrax, for the seventh consecutive year since 2013, it is the first Airport in the world to do so for seven consecutive years and is one of the world's busiest airports by international passenger and cargo traffic. The airport is located in Changi, at the eastern end of Singapore 20 kilometres northeast from Marina Bay, on a 13-square-kilometre site, it is operated by Changi Airport Group and it is the home base of Singapore Airlines, Singapore Airlines Cargo, SilkAir, Jetstar Asia Airways and BOC Aviation. As of 1 March 2019, Changi Airport serves more than 100 airlines flying to 400 cities in around 100 countries and territories worldwide; each week, about 7,400 flights depart from Changi, or, about one every 80 seconds. For the 2018 full year figures published by the airport, the airport handled 65,600,000 passengers, the most in its 37-year history.
This made it the sixth busiest airport by international passenger traffic in the world and the second busiest in Asia. In December 2018, Changi Airport registered a total of 6.13 million passenger movements, the highest the airport has achieved in a month since it opened in 1981. Its daily traffic movement record was broken on 21 December 2018, with 221,155 passengers passing through during that day. In addition to being an important passenger hub, the airport is one of the busiest cargo airports in the world, handling 2.150 million tonnes of cargo in 2018. The total number of commercial aircraft movements increased by 3.4% from the previous year to 386,000 in 2018. The airport has won over 594 awards since its opening, including 30 "Best Airport" awards in 2018 alone. Changi Airport's efforts to mitigate the effects of ageing infrastructure include continual physical upgrades to its existing terminals and building new facilities to maintain its high standards in airport service quality. Changi Airport has four main passenger terminals arranged in an elongated inverted'U' shape.
The airport has a designed total annual handling capacity of 85 million passengers. Terminal 1, opened on 1 July 1981, is located at the northern end. Terminal 2, opened on 22 November 1990, is located at the eastern end. Terminal 3, opened on 9 January 2008, is located at the western end. Terminal 4, opened on 31 October 2017, is located on the southern side, at the site of the former budget terminal. There is a run luxury terminal called the JetQuay CIP Terminal, it is similar to the Lufthansa First Class Terminal at Frankfurt Airport, but is open to all passengers travelling in all classes on all airlines with an access fee. Terminal 5, scheduled to open on 2025, is located opposite Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 4; the short-lived Budget Terminal was opened on 26 March 2006 and closed on 25 September 2012 to make way for a larger Terminal 4, which opened on 31 October 2017. Terminal 5 is set to be ready in the mid 2030s, it is expected to handle 50 million passenger movements per annum. The airport terminal structure is projected to be larger than terminals 3 combined.
It will be built on reclaimed land to the east of the present terminals. It will be funded through the newly increased levy. KPF Singapore with Heatherwick Studio, Architects 61, DP Architects will provide architectural services. Arup Singapore, Mott MacDonald Singapore and Surbana Jurong Consultants will provide engineering services. Jewel Changi Airport, set to open on 17 April 2019, is a multi-use structure interconnecting Terminals 1, 2 and 3. Part of this project will help expand Terminal 1 to handle 24 million passengers per year; as the airport only handles international passenger traffic, all terminals in operation are equipped with immigration-processing facilities for international travel. After recovering from a drop in passenger traffic as a result of the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic in 2003, the airport saw rapid growth in traffic, which hit the 30-million mark for the first time in 2004. In March 2008, prior to the full effect of the financial crisis of 2007–2010 on the global economy, the airport was predicted to handle 50 million passengers by 2012 due to the opening of casinos in Singapore and the phased liberalisation of the Asean aviation sector.
As predicted, the airport surpassed the 50-million mark in 2012. On 18 December 2017, the airport surpassed the 60-million mark for the first time; the airport saw a record 65.6 million passenger movements in 2018 - beating 2017's record of 60 million passengers with a 5.5 per cent increase. By end-2018, the sole turboprop operator in Changi Airport will move to Seletar Airport to make way for their jet operations; the Air Cargo Division of the Changi Airport Group manages the Changi Airfreight Centre located in the north of the airport premises. The airport handled 1.81 million tonnes of air cargo in 2012, making it the 7th busiest airfreight hub in the world and the fifth busiest in Asia. Due to Singapore's large electronics sector, electrical components constitute a significant part of the total cargo traffic handled at the airport. Changi airport has initiated attempts to expand into the perishable air cargo market. In 2015, Changi Airport handled 1,853,087 tonnes of air freight. Air Cargo World awarded the 2013 Air Cargo Excellence Award to Changi Airport for handling more than 1,000,000 tonnes of cargo in Asia.
The airport handled 2,006,300 tonnes of cargo in 2016, making it the 13th top cargo airport in the world and the sixth in the Asia Pacific region. In 2017, the airport handled 2,125,226 tonnes
Geneva
Geneva is the second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Canton of Geneva; the municipality has a population of 200,548, the canton has 495,249 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France. Within Swiss territory, the commuter area named "Métropole lémanique" contains a population of 1.26 million. This area is spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, in the neighbouring canton of Vaud. Geneva is a global city, a financial centre, a worldwide centre for diplomacy due to the presence of numerous international organizations, including the headquarters of many agencies of the United Nations and the Red Cross. Geneva hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world, it is where the Geneva Conventions were signed, which chiefly concern the treatment of wartime non-combatants and prisoners of war.
In 2017, Geneva was ranked as the world's fifteenth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, fifth in Europe behind London, Zürich and Luxembourg. In 2019 Geneva was ranked among the ten most liveable cities in the world by Mercer together with Zürich and Basel; the city has been referred to as the world's most compact metropolis and the "Peace Capital". In 2017, Geneva was ranked as the seventh most expensive city in the world. Geneva was ranked third in purchasing power in a global cities ranking by UBS in 2018; the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava from the Celtic *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis. After 1400 it became the Genevois province of Savoy; the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva in English, French: Genève, German: Genf, Italian: Ginevra, Romansh: Genevra.
The city shares the origin of * genawa "estuary", with the Italian port city of Genoa. Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC, it became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the Bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, when it was granted a charter giving it a high degree of self-governance. Around this time, the House of Savoy came to at least nominally dominate the city. In the 15th century, an oligarchic republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In the first half of the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation reached the city, causing religious strife, during which Savoy rule was thrown off and Geneva allied itself with the Swiss Confederacy. In 1541, with Protestantism on the rise, John Calvin, the Protestant Reformer and proponent of Calvinism, became the spiritual leader of the city and established the Republic of Geneva.
By the 18th century, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, which inspired the failed Geneva Revolution of 1782, an attempt to win representation in the government for men of modest means. In 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, Geneva was admitted to the Swiss Confederation. In 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of many international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12' North, 6°09' East, at the south-western end of Lake Geneva, where the Rhône flows out, it is surrounded by three mountain chains, each belonging to the Jura: the Jura main range lies north-westward, the Vuache southward, the Salève south-eastward. The city covers an area of 15.93 km2, while the area of the canton is 282 km2, including the two small exclaves of Céligny in Vaud.
The part of the lake, attached to Geneva has an area of 38 km2 and is sometimes referred to as petit lac. The canton has only a 4.5-kilometre-long border with the rest of Switzerland. Of 107.5 km of border, 103 are shared with France, the Département de l'Ain to the north and west and the Département de la Haute-Savoie to the south and east. Of the land in the city, 0.24 km2, or 1.5%, is used for agricultural purposes, while 0.5 km2, or 3.1%, is forested. The rest of the land, 14.63 km2, or 91.8%, is built up, 0.49 km2, or 3.1%, is either rivers or lakes and 0.02 km2, or 0.1%, is wasteland. Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 3.4%, housing and buildings made up 46.2% and transportation infrastructure 25.8%, while parks, green belts and sports fields made up 15.7%. Of the agricultural land, 0.3% is used for growing crops. Of the water in the municipality, 0.2 % is composed of lakes and 2.9 % streams. The altitude of Geneva is 373.6 metres, corresponds to the altitude of
Skytrax
Skytrax is a United Kingdom–based consultancy which runs an airline and airport review and ranking site. Skytrax conducts research for commercial airlines, as well as taking surveys from international travelers to rate cabin staff, airlines, airline lounges, in-flight entertainment, on-board catering, several other elements of air travel. Apart from these evaluations, Skytrax has an airline forum where passengers give potential passengers insights and opinions about an airline; the website hosts flight reviews, flight checks, satisfaction surveys. Skytrax holds an annual World Airline Awards and World Airport Awards, as well as the ranking for airlines and airports. In 2012, the online investigations company KwikChex filed five complaints with the UK Advertising Standards Authority related to statements on the Skytrax web site describing the volume and reliability of their reviews as well as the official status and update frequency of their ratings; the Authority upheld all Skytrax agreed to modify some promotional wording.
Inflight Research Services sent some information to the UK House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology's Fifth Report regarding seat pitch in 2000. Skytrax presents awards annually to airports and airlines that it considers noteworthy in their performance. Sources: Source: Heydar Aliev International Airport Haikou Meilan International Airport Munich Airport Hong Kong International Airport Chubu Centrair International Airport Haneda Airport Incheon International Airport Hamad International Airport Platov International Airport Singapore Changi Airport Official website
Malaysia
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of 13 states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two sized regions, Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore and Indonesia. East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. Kuala Lumpur is the national capital and largest city while Putrajaya is the seat of federal government. With a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the world's 44th most populous country; the southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia. In the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms which, from the 18th century, became subject to the British Empire, along with the British Straits Settlements protectorate.
Peninsular Malaysia was unified as the Malayan Union in 1946. Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia. In 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation; the country is multi-cultural, which plays a large role in its politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with large minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians, indigenous peoples. While recognising Islam as the country's established religion, the constitution grants freedom of religion to non-Muslims; the government system is modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the Prime Minister; the country's official language is a standard form of the Malay language.
English remains an active second language. Since independence, Malaysian GDP has grown at an average of 6.5% per annum for 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its natural resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism and medical tourism. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked fourth largest in Southeast Asia and 38th largest in the world, it is a founding member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the East Asia Summit and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, a member of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement. The name "Malaysia" is a combination of the word "Malay" and the Latin-Greek suffix "-sia"/-σία; the word "melayu" in Malay may derive from the Tamil words "malai" and "ur" meaning "mountain" and "city, land", respectively. "Malayadvipa" was the word used by ancient Indian traders. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word "melayu" or "mlayu" may have been used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to accelerate or run.
This term was applied to describe the strong current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra. Before the onset of European colonisation, the Malay Peninsula was known natively as "Tanah Melayu". Under a racial classification created by a German scholar Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the natives of maritime Southeast Asia were grouped into a single category, the Malay race. Following the expedition of French navigator Jules Dumont d'Urville to Oceania in 1826, he proposed the terms of "Malaysia", "Micronesia" and "Melanesia" to the Société de Géographie in 1831, distinguishing these Pacific cultures and island groups from the existing term "Polynesia". Dumont d'Urville described Malaysia as "an area known as the East Indies". In 1850, the English ethnologist George Samuel Windsor Earl, writing in the Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, proposed naming the islands of Southeast Asia as "Melayunesia" or "Indunesia", favouring the former.
In modern terminology, "Malay" remains the name of an ethnoreligious group of Austronesian people predominantly inhabiting the Malay Peninsula and portions of the adjacent islands of Southeast Asia, including the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, smaller islands that lie between these areas. The state that gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1957 took the name the "Federation of Malaya", chosen in preference to other potential names such as "Langkasuka", after the historic kingdom located at the upper section of the Malay Peninsula in the first millennium CE; the name "Malaysia" was adopted in 1963 when the existing states of the Federation of Malaya, plus Singapore, North Borneo and Sarawak formed a new federation. One theory posits the name was chosen so that "si" represented the inclusion of Singapore, North Borneo, Sarawak to Malaya in 1963. Politicians in the Philippines contemplated renaming their state "Malaysia" before the modern country took the name. Evidence of modern human habitation in Malaysia dates back 40,000 years.
In the Malay Peninsula, the first inhabitants are thought to be Negritos. Traders and settlers from India and China arrived as early as the first century AD, establishing trading ports and coastal towns in the second and third centuries, their presence resulted in strong Indian and Chinese influences on the local cultures, the people of the Malay Peninsula adopted the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Sanskrit inscriptions appear as early as the fifth century; the Kingdom of
Montreal
Montreal is the most populous municipality in the Canadian province of Quebec and the second-most populous municipality in Canada. Called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city; the city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of, Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with cold, snowy winters. In 2016, the city had a population of 1,704,694, with a population of 1,942,044 in the urban agglomeration, including all of the other municipalities on the Island of Montreal; the broader metropolitan area had a population of 4,098,927. French is the city's official language and is the language spoken at home by 49.8% of the population of the city, followed by English at 22.8% and 18.3% other languages. In the larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 65.8% of the population speaks French at home, compared to 15.3% who speak English.
The agglomeration Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada, with over 59% of the population able to speak both English and French. Montreal is the second-largest French-speaking city in the world, after Paris, it is situated 258 kilometres south-west of Quebec City. The commercial capital of Canada, Montreal was surpassed in population and in economic strength by Toronto in the 1970s, it remains an important centre of commerce, transport, pharmaceuticals, design, art, tourism, fashion, gaming and world affairs. Montreal has the second-highest number of consulates in North America, serves as the location of the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization, was named a UNESCO City of Design in 2006. In 2017, Montreal was ranked the 12th most liveable city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit in its annual Global Liveability Ranking, the best city in the world to be a university student in the QS World University Rankings. Montreal has hosted multiple international conferences and events, including the 1967 International and Universal Exposition and the 1976 Summer Olympics.
It is the only Canadian city to have held the Summer Olympics. In 2018, Montreal was ranked as an Alpha− world city; as of 2016 the city hosts the Canadian Grand Prix of Formula One, the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the Just for Laughs festival. In the Mohawk language, the island is called Tiohtià:ke Tsi, it is a name referring to the Lachine Rapids to the island's Ka-wé-no-te. It means "a place where nations and rivers unite and divide". In the Ojibwe language, the land is called Mooniyaang which means "the first stopping place" and is part of the seven fires prophecy; the city was first named Ville Marie by European settlers from La Flèche, or "City of Mary", named for the Virgin Mary. Its current name comes from the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. According to one theory, the name derives from mont Réal,. A possibility by the Government of Canada on its web site concerning Canadian place names, is that the name was adopted as it is written nowadays because an early map of 1556 used the Italian name of the mountain, Monte Real.
Archaeological evidence demonstrates that First Nations native people occupied the island of Montreal as early as 4,000 years ago. By the year AD 1000, they had started to cultivate maize. Within a few hundred years, they had built fortified villages; the Saint Lawrence Iroquoians, an ethnically and culturally distinct group from the Iroquois nations of the Haudenosaunee based in present-day New York, established the village of Hochelaga at the foot of Mount Royal two centuries before the French arrived. Archeologists have found evidence of their habitation there and at other locations in the valley since at least the 14th century; the French explorer Jacques Cartier visited Hochelaga on October 2, 1535, estimated the population of the native people at Hochelaga to be "over a thousand people". Evidence of earlier occupation of the island, such as those uncovered in 1642 during the construction of Fort Ville-Marie, have been removed. Seventy years the French explorer Samuel de Champlain reported that the St Lawrence Iroquoians and their settlements had disappeared altogether from the St Lawrence valley.
This is believed to be due to epidemics of European diseases, or intertribal wars. In 1611 Champlain established a fur trading post on the Island of Montreal, on a site named La Place Royale. At the confluence of Petite Riviere and St. Lawrence River, it is where present-day Pointe-à-Callière stands. On his 1616 map, Samuel de Champlain named the island Lille de Villemenon, in honour of the sieur de Villemenon, a French dignitary, seeking the viceroyship of New France. In 1639 Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière obtained the Seigneurial title to the Island of Montreal in the name of the Notre Dame Society of Montreal to establish a Roman Catholic mission to evangelize natives. Dauversiere hired Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve 30, to lead a group of colonists to build a mission on his new seigneury; the colonists left France in 1641 for Quebec, arrived on the island the following year. On May 17, 1642, Ville-Marie was founded on the southern shore of Montreal is
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