Norland is a small rural farming community, from 1854-1967 known as Norland, Victoria, Canada West, British Colonial America, then on the 1 July 1867 it became known as Norland, Laxton Township, Victoria, Ontario, Canada until 1 July 2001 when it was amalgamation to became part of the city of Kawartha Lakes, in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is located in a scenic spot on the Gull River at the north end of Shadow Lake, the northernmost Kawartha lake in the Trent River chain. Here, a series of three waterfalls reflect the change in elevation of the land leading north to the Haliburton Highlands.

The City of Kawartha Lakes is a unitary municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. It is a municipality legally structured as a single-tier city; however, Kawartha Lakes is the size of a typical Ontario county and is mostly rural. It is the second largest single-tier municipality in Ontario by land area.