Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHA : Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
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Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHA : Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
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Downtown Charlottetown includes the city's historic 500 lots, as surveyed by Captain Samuel Holland, as well as the waterfront facing the harbour and the Hillsborough River. Adjacent communities to the original downtown included Brighton, Spring Park, and Parkdale. The areas to the west, north and east of downtown have been developed in recent decades with several residential and commercial/retail developments, although the outer regions of the city are still predominantly farmland, as is an area in the centre of the city where an Agriculture Canada crop research station is located.
Charlottetown is home to the P.E.I. Rocket of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The team plays at the Charlottetown Civic Centre.
Charlottetown is a popular destination in eastern Canada for visitors from other Maritime provinces, central Canada and the northeastern United States, as the city has a central location in the province as well as various services. The city's streetscapes with a centrally-planned downtown core containing many Victorian-era houses and buildings is an attraction, as well as a waterfront redevelopment project in recent decades which has seen walking trails and parks developed on former industrial lands. A new cruise ship terminal is planned by the local port authority which proponents hope will make the city a more attractive destination for the growing number of vessels operating in Atlantic Canadian waters.
Popular attractions within the city include the provincial legislature at Province House, which hosted the Charlottetown Conference, as well as Founders Hall, a recently redeveloped railway maintenance building which now houses an interactive trip through history tracing the development of Canada as a nation. The Confederation Centre of the Arts provides live theatre, including the Charlottetown Festival during the summer months, as well as a nationally-ranked art gallery. The Charlottetown Festival itself is headlined by Canada's most popular and longest-running musical, Anne of Green Gables - The Musical, which is an adaptation of Island author Lucy Maud Montgomery's novel.
On November 17, 1775 the colony's new capital was ransacked by Massachusetts-based privateers during the American Revolutionary War, during which the colonial seal, along with prisoners were taken.
In 1805, the local British garrison constructed another harbour defence at Fort Edward to the west of the capital's waterfront. The Prince Edward Battery was then relocated to this facility.
In 1835, Government House was constructed at Fanning Bank as a residence for the colony's Governor. It continues as the official residence for the Lieutenant Governor).
Between 1843 and 1847, a new legislature building was constructed in the community. Named "Province House", the completion of this structure was an important milestone in the history of the capital and it is still in use today as the provincial legislature and is currently the second-oldest legislative seat in Canada.
On April 17, 1855, Charlottetown was incorporated as a town, holding its first council meeting on August 11 that year. The community had 6,500 residents at the time of incorporation.
Between September 1-7, 1864, Charlottetown hosted what is now termed the Charlottetown Conference. Although many of the meetings and negotiations which would lead to Canadian Confederation were held in Province House, various social events spilled over into the surrounding community.
Prince Edward Island entered Confederation on July 1, 1873. This same day, the "Government House Farm" at Fanning Bank was designated a municipal park, named "Victoria Park" in honour of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
Aside from being the seat of colonial government, the community came to be noted during the early 19th century for shipbuilding and its lumber industry as well as being a fishing port. The shipbuilding industry declined in the latter part of the nineteenth century In August 1874 the Prince Edward Island Railway opened its main line between Charlottetown and Summerside. The railway, along with the shipping industry, would continue to drive industrial development on the waterfront for several decades to come.
In 1885 the municipality saw its status upgraded to become a city.
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As with most communities in North America, the automobile shaped Charlottetown's development in the latter half of the 20th century, when outlying farms in rural areas of Brighton, Spring Park, and Parkdale saw increased housing developments. The Charlottetown airfield in the nearby rural community of Sherwood was upgraded as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and operated for the duration of World War II as RCAF Station Charlottetown, in conjunction with RCAF Station Mount Pleasant and RCAF Station Summerside. After the war the airfield was designated Charlottetown Airport. Further post-war development saw residential properties continue to expand in adjacent outlying areas, particularly in the neighbouring farming communities of Sherwood, West Royalty, and East Royalty.
To commemorate the centennial of the Charlottetown Conference, the 10 provinces and federal government contributed to a national monument to the "Fathers of Confederation." The Confederation Centre of the Arts, which opened in 1964, is a gift to the residents of Prince Edward Island, and contains a public library, nationally-renowned art gallery, and a mainstage theatre which has played to the Charlottetown Festival every summer since.
In the 1960s new public schools were constructed in the community and in 1969 the city became home to the amalgamated University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), located on the campus of the former St. Dunstan's University. Together with the federal Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food's Charlottetown Experimental Farm (also known as Ravenwood Farm), these properties comprise a large green space surrounded by the city. The Prince of Wales College downtown campus became part of a new provincial community college system named Holland College, in honour of the island's famous surveyor.
In 1982 the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital, named after Queen Elizabeth II of Canada, was opened, followed in 1983 when the national headquarters of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs was moved to Charlottetown as part of a nation-wide federal government decentralization programme. In 1986, UPEI saw further expansion with the opening of the Atlantic Veterinary College.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Charlottetown witnessed increased commercial office and retail development which saw a waterfront hotel and numerous apartment complexes as well as shopping centres being built. In the 1990s, abandoned railway and industrial lands on the waterfront were transformed into parks and cultural attractions.
Since early 2004 Charlottetown continues to experience a boom in new commercial construction. "West Royalty Power Centre " Includes the province's first Sears department store, while many other big box retail chain stores are under construction.
In keeping with its heritage cityscape, and due to the lack of adequate bedrock in the area, Charlottetown limits buildings to a maximum height of six storeys.
Charlottetown is comprised of the following neighbourhoods which were one-time independent municipalities:
Municipal amalgamation in 1996 saw the outlying independent municipalities of Parkdale (town), Sherwood, East Royalty, West Royalty and Winsloe (villages) merged into a larger city of Charlottetown at the same time as rural communities east and west of the city were amalgamated to form the towns of Stratford and Cornwall respectively.
A green belt is in place around the northern fringe of the municipal boundary, although it is poorly enforced by the provincial government, leading to urban sprawl.
The median income for a household in the city is $52,996, and the median income for a family is $77,008. Males have a median income of $42,519 versus $28,136 for females. The per capita income for the town is $29,710. 12.2% of the population and 8.0% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 9.6% of those under the age of 18 and 10.3% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
In 2001, 16.4% of the resident population in Charlottetown were of retirement age (65 and over for males and females) compared with 13.2% in Canada; therefore, the median age is 38.8 years of age comparing to 37.6 years of age for all of Canada.
In the five years between 1996 and 2001, the population of Charlottetown fell by 0.9%, compared with an increase of 0.5% for Prince Edward Island as a whole. Population density of Charlottetown averaged 727.3 people per square kilometre, compared with a provincial average of 23.8 for Prince Edward Island.
The Charlottetown census agglomeration area (CA) is comprised of Charlottetown and the neighbouring towns of Stratford and Cornwall, as well as adjoining rural areas of central-eastern Queens County, namely Lots 31, 34, 35, 36, 48, 49 and 65. At the time of the census in May 2001, the estimated resident population for the CA was 58,358 people over an area measuring 823.39 square kilometres, compared with a resident population in the province of Prince Edward Island of 135,294 people. The July 1, 2005 population estimate for the CA is 60,321 and the 2010 projected population is estimated to be 61,210.
Racial & Religious Profile
According to the 2001 Statistics Canada, more than nine out of ten inhabitants of the Charlottetown metropolitan self-identified as Christian. This breaks down to 91.7% Christian (46.0% Roman Catholic, 42.6% Protestant, and 3.0% other Christian mostly Orthodox), 7.3% stating no religion, and minor religions that comprise less than 1.0% includes Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish.
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| Prince Edward Island |
|---|---|
| Counties | Kings - Prince - Queens |
| Parishes | Bedford - Charlotte - East - Egmont - Greenville - Halifax - Hillsboro - North - Richmond - St. Andrew's - St. David's - St. George's - St. John's - St. Patrick's |
| Lots | 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48 - 49 - 51 - 52 - 53 - 54 - 55 - 56 - 57 - 58 - 59 - 61 - 62 - 63 - 64 - 65 - 66 - 67 |
| Royalties | Kings Royalty - Prince Royalty - Queens Royalty |
| Cities | Charlottetown - Summerside |
| Other communities | Alberton - Borden - Breadalbane - Cavendish - Central Bedeque - Cornwall - Ellerslie - Foxley River - Freeland - Georgetown - Hebron - Hunter River - Kensington - Knutsford - Miminegash - Miscouche - Montague - Morell - Mt. Stewart - Murray Harbour - Murray River - O'Leary - Rustico - Souris - Stratford - Tignish |
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