Halifax Regional
Municipality is the capital of the province of Nova Scotia
, Canada
. The
municipality is commonly called
Halifax( ) or
formally,
HRM.
The
population in 2006 was 372,679; the urban area of HRM
had a population of 282,924, giving the
municipality the largest urban area in Atlantic Canada
and largest population centre in Canada east of
Quebec
City
. According to
Statistics Canada the
census metropolitan area[72413] of Halifax reached 394,600 in
2008
HRM's urban
area is a major economic centre in eastern Canada with a
large concentration of government services and private sector
companies. Major employers and economic generators
include the Department of National
Defence, various levels of government, and the Port of
Halifax
. Agriculture, fishing, mining, forestry and
natural gas extraction are major resource industries found in the
rural areas of HRM.
History
The area comprising present day
Halifax County was settled for
thousands of years by the
Mi'kmaq.
Those who
settled on Halifax
Harbour
called it Jipugtug (anglicised as "Chebucto"),
meaning Great Harbour. The first permanent European settlement in
the area was the establishment of the Town of Halifax
in 1749 when the colonial capital was
transferred from Annapolis Royal
; other towns and villages were established
throughout adjacent areas of what would become Halifax County in
the decades that followed.
In 1996 the provincial government
amalgamated all municipal
governments within Halifax County to create HRM, a regional
municipality comprising approximately 200 individual
communities or placenames for civic
addressing grouped into 18 planning areas for zoning
purposes.
Geography
The
Halifax Regional Municipality occupies an area of 5,577 square
kilometres (2,353 sq mi),
(approximately 10% of Nova Scotia) comparative to the province of
Prince Edward
Island
, and measures approximately 165 kilometres
(102.5 mi) in length between its eastern and western-most
extremities.
The
coastline is heavily indented,
accounting for its length of approximately 400 kilometres
(250 mi), with the northern boundary usually being between
50-60 kilometres (30-37 mi) inland. The coast is mostly rock
with small isolated sand beaches in sheltered bays.
The largest bays
include St. Margarets Bay
, Halifax
Harbour/Bedford
Basin
, Cole Harbour
, Musquodoboit Harbour
, Jeddore Harbour, Ship Harbour, Sheet
Harbour
, and Ecum Secum
Harbour. The municipality's topography spans from lush
farmland in the Musquodoboit
Valley
to rocky and heavily forested rolling
hills.
Urban-rural characteristics
Urban, Suburban, Rural divisions of
HRM as defined by HRM Planning Department
http://www.halifax.ca/regionalplanning/Images/HRMmaplg.jpg
The municipality is large in physical area, centred on the urban
core and surrounded by areas of decreasing density the farther the
community is from the core.
Unlike most municipalities with a sizable census
metropolitan area, Halifax Regional
Municipality's suburbs are completely incorporated into the entire
municipality, with the urban area including the urban core,
suburban communities and a rural commuter shed that encompasses
almost half the municipality's landmass.
The urban
area of HRM (2006 pop: 282,924) is located in the western end of
the municipality, fronting on Halifax Harbour. The dense urban core is centred on the
Halifax
Peninsula
and the area of Dartmouth
inside of the Circumferential Highway
. The suburban area stretches beyond Mainland
Halifax
to the west, Cole Harbour to the east, and Bedford
, Lower Sackville
and Windsor Junction areas to the
north.
This
urban area constitutes the most populous urban area on Canada's
Atlantic coast, and the second largest coastal
population centre in the country, after Vancouver, British
Columbia
. HRM currently accounts for 40% of Nova
Scotia's population, and 15% of that of the Atlantic
provinces
.
The north
eastern area centred on Sheet Harbour and the Musquodoboit
Valley is completely rural, with more in common with
adjacent rural areas of neighbouring counties.
HRM's boundary includes all of Halifax County except for several
First Nation reserves.
Statistics
Canada identifies HRM as a
census
subdivision while Halifax County is listed as a
census division, despite the fact that both
geographic areas differ by only several dozen
hectares. Statistics Canada also lists the dissolved
municipalities of Bedford, Dartmouth and Halifax, describing them
as "Dissolved (municipalities) having undergone an
amalgamation/dissolution)."
Neighbourhoods and communities
Detail of HRM Community Planning
Areas
The Halifax Regional Municipality is an
amalgamation of four
municipal governments in the urban and
rural areas, therefore its composition of neighbourhoods and
communities is unlike other municipalities such as a city.
There are over 200 official
rural and
urban communities within Halifax County
that have maintained their original geographic names (including the
dissolved cities of Halifax and Dartmouth and the town of Bedford).
These community names are used on survey and
mapping documents, for
9-1-1
service, municipal planning, and postal service.
HRM is divided into eighteen community planning areas which are
further divided into neighbourhoods or villages. Several
communities or neighbourhoods that were amalgamated by the former
constituent municipalities in previous decades are starting to see
their names gain increased use. The regional municipality has taken
steps to reduce duplicate street names for its 9-1-1 emergency
dispatch services; at the time of amalgamation, some street names
were duplicated several times throughout HRM.
The
urban core
of HRM
is a term used to roughly describe the urban
concentration surrounding Halifax Harbour in the western part of the municipality, and
includes the Halifax Metropolitan Area, the Dartmouth Metropolitan
Area, and the Bedford-Sackville areas. Rural areas lie to
the east, west and north of this urban core. Certain rural
communities on the urban fringe function as suburban or exurban
areas, with the majority of those residents working in the urban
core. Farther away, rural communities in HRM function much as any
resource-based area in Nova Scotia, being sparsely populated, with
their local economies developing around four major resource
industries:
agriculture,
fishing,
mining and
forestry.
It should be noted that the tourism industry is beginning to change how some
rural communities in HRM function, particularly in coastal areas
such as Hubbards
, Peggys Cove
and Lawrencetown
.
Climate
HRM's
climate is heavily influenced by its location on Nova Scotia's
Atlantic
coast. The
weather is
usually milder or cooler than that of
central Canada, with the temperature
remaining (with occasional notable exceptions) between about
-15°
C and 35°C (5°F to 95°F) inland, coastal
sections have even less range due to strong maritime influence.
Precipitation is high year-round, snow, rain and ice mixes are
common in the winter, sometimes it is mild and rainy. Halifax often
receives tropical storms mostly between August and October. They
are very rarely in Hurricane form when they make landfall, the most
recent exception was when
Hurricane
Juan, a Category 2 storm hit in September 2003. Atlantic sea
surface temperatures off the coast of Nova Scotia were warmer than
normal that year and the accelerated storm track did not allow for
the usual weakening that usually occurs with hurricanes moving over
the colder waters of the Nova Scotia coast after passing the
Gulfstream.
Temperatures
Economy
The urban area of Halifax Regional Municipality is a major economic
centre in eastern Canada with a large concentration of government
services and private sector companies. Halifax serves as the
business, banking, government and cultural centre for the Maritime
region.
employers and economic generators include the
Department of National Defence, as well as
the
Port of
Halifax.
The municipality has a growing concentration
of manufacturing industries and is becoming a major multi-modal
transportation hub through growth at the port, the Halifax
Stanfield International Airport
, and improving rail and highway connections.
A real estate boom in recent years has led to numerous new property
developments, including the
gentrification of some former working-class
areas.
Agriculture, fishing, mining, forestry and natural gas extraction
are major resource industries found in the rural areas of HRM.
HRM's
largest agricultural district is in the Musquodoboit
Valley; the total number of farms in HRM is 150, of which
110 are family-owned. Fishing harbours are located along all
coastal areas with some having an independent harbour authority,
and others being managed as small craft harbours under the federal
Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Other resource industries in HRM include the natural gas fields off
the coast of Sable Island, as well as clay, shale, gold, limestone,
and gypsum extraction in rural areas of the mainland portion of the
municipality.
Government
Halifax skyline at night.
The Halifax Regional Municipality is governed by a
mayor (elected at
large) and a twenty-three person
council, who are elected by
geographic district; municipal elections occur every four years.
HRM has established
community councils where
three or more councillors agree to form these councils to deal
primarily with local development issues. Most community council
decisions are subject to final approval by regional council. The
current Mayor of the Halifax Regional Municipality is
Peter J. Kelly.
The
Halifax Regional Council is
responsible for all facets of municipal government, including the
Halifax
Regional Police
, Halifax Public Libraries
, Halifax Fire
and Emergency, Halifax Regional Water
Commission, parks and recreation, civic addressing, public
works, waste management, and planning and development.
Education
Halifax's Historic Properties.
The Halifax Regional Municipality has a well-developed network of
public and private schools, providing instruction from primary to
grade
12;
one hundred and thirty seven public schools are administered by the
Halifax
Regional School Board
, as well as three public schools administered by
the Conseil Scolaire
Acadien Provincial, whereas the fourteen private schools are
operated independently.
The
municipality is also home to the following post-secondary educational institutions:
Dalhousie
University
, Saint Mary's University
, Mount Saint Vincent
University
, the Halifax campus of Université
Sainte-Anne
, University of King's College
, Atlantic School of Theology
, NSCAD University
, the Centre for Arts and Technology, and the
Nova Scotia
Community College
. The presence of so many university and
college students contributes to a vibrant youth culture in the
region, as well as making it a major centre for university
education in eastern Canada.
Culture
The urban
area of Halifax Regional Municipality is a major cultural centre
within the Atlantic
provinces. The
municipality's urban core also benefits from a large population of
post-secondary students who strongly influence the local cultural
scene. HRM has a number of art galleries, theatres and museums, as
well as most of the region's national-quality sports and
entertainment facilities. The municipality is home to many
performance venues, namely the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, the Neptune
Theatre, and The Music Room. HRM also is the home to many of the
regions major cultural attractions, such as Symphony Nova Scotia,
the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia,
The
Khyber ICA, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and the Neptune
Theatre. On special occasions, the city will put on a fireworks
display which is best viewed from a boat. The region is noted for
the strength of its music scene and nightlife, especially in the
central urban core. See
List of musical
groups from Halifax, Nova Scotia for a partial list.
HRM plays host to a wide variety of festivals that take place
throughout the year, including: The Atlantic Film Festival, The
Royal Nova Scotia
International Tattoo, The Halifax Busker Festival, Greekfest,
The Atlantic Jazz Festival, The Multicultural Festival, periodic
Tall Ship events, and Shakespeare by the Sea, to name a few. Many
of these celebrations have become world renowned over the past
several years.
HRM has also become a significant film-production centre, with many
American and Canadian filmmakers using the streetscapes, often to
stand in for other cities that are more expensive to work in. The
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has its Atlantic Canada
production centres (radio and television) based in Halifax, and
quite a number of radio and television programs are made in the
region for national broadcast.
HRM is considered by many to be the cultural centre of the
Maritimes. The municipality has been able to maintain many of its
maritime and military traditions, while opening itself to a growing
multicultural population.
Sport
The Halifax Regional Municipality is home to a number of outdoor
recreational opportunities, including numerous ocean and lake
beaches, as well as rural and urban parks. The municipality has a
host of organised community intramural sports, as well as varsity
and intramural sports offered by public schools and post-secondary
institutions and has extensive facilities.
The region is home to several professional and semi-professional
sport franchises, such as the
Halifax
Mooseheads of the
Quebec Major Junior Hockey
League (see also
Sports teams
in the Halifax Regional Municipality).
The region has also hosted several major sporting events, including
the 2003
World Junior
Hockey Championship,
2003 Nokia
Brier, the
2004 Women's World
Ice Hockey Championships, and 2007
World Indoor Lacrosse
Championship.
From 1984 to 2007, the region had been home
to the CIS
Men's Basketball Championship, however the tournament was moved
to Ottawa
, Ontario
starting in 2008. The 72nd
Ice Hockey World
Championship was held between May 2 and May 18, 2008
in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Quebec City, Canada.
Halifax was selected as Canada's bid for the
2014 Commonwealth Games in 2006 but
withdrew from the international competition in advance of the
November 9,
2007
selection date on
March 8.
In February 2007, the municipality was selected as the host
community for the 2011
Canada Winter
Games.
Media
Argyle Street, for many years home to the Halifax Herald
HRM is the Maritimes' centre for broadcast and print media.
CBC,
CTV and
Global Television all have regional
television hubs in the municipality.
CBC
Radio has a major regional studio and there are also regional
hubs for Rogers Radio and various private broadcast franchises, as
well as a regional bureau for
The
Canadian Press/
Broadcast
News.
HRM's print media is centred on its single daily newspaper, the
broadsheet
The
Chronicle-Herald as well as two free newspapers, the daily
commuter-oriented edition of
Metro and the free alternative
arts weekly
The Coast.
Frank Magazine provides HRM with a
bi-weekly satirical and gossip magazine.
From 1974-2008, HRM had a second daily newspaper, the tabloid
The Daily News
which still publishes several neighbourhood weekly papers such
as
The Bedford-Sackville Weekly News,
The Halifax
West-Clayton Park Weekly News and the
Dartmouth-Cole
Harbour Weekly News. These weekly papers compete with The
Chronicle-Herald's weekly Community Heralds
HRM West,
HRM East, and
HRM North.
Transportation
Halifax
Harbour is a major port used by numerous shipping lines,
administered by the Halifax Port Authority. The
navy and
coast guard have major installations
along prominent sections of coastline in both Halifax and
Dartmouth. The harbour is also home to a public ferry service
connecting downtown Halifax to two locations in Dartmouth.
Sheet
Harbour is the other major port in the municipality and serves
industrial shippers on the Eastern Shore
.
The
Halifax Port
Authority's various shipping terminals constitute the eastern
terminus of Canadian National
Railway's transcontinental network. VIA Rail Canada provides overnight passenger
rail service six days a week to Montreal
with the Ocean, a train equipped with
sleeper cars that stops in major centres along the way, such as
Moncton.
Halifax
Stanfield International Airport serves HRM and most of the province, providing
scheduled flights to domestic and international
destinations. CFB Shearwater
, an air force base, is located on the eastern side
of Halifax Harbour.
The
municipality's urban core is linked by the Angus
L.
Macdonald and A.
Murray MacKay suspension bridges, as well as the network of
100-series
highways which function as expressways. The Armdale
traffic circle
is an infamous choke point for vehicle movement in
the western part of the urban core, especially at rush
hour.
The urban
core of HRM is served by Metro Transit
, which operates standard bus routes, bus-rapid
transit routes, as well as the pedestrian-only harbour
ferries. Established in 1752 , the municipality's ferry
service is the oldest continuously running
salt
water ferry service in North America.
Buildings and structures
HRM's urban core is home to a number of regional landmark buildings
and retains some significant historic buildings.
The downtown's mid
level office towers are overlooked by the fortress of Citadel
Hill
with its iconic Halifax Town Clock
.
The
architecture of Halifax's South End
is renowned for its grand Victorian houses while
the West
End
and North End, Halifax
have many blocks of well preserved wooden
residential houses with notable features such as the "Halifax
Porch". Dalhousie University's campus is often featured in films and
documentaries. Dartmouth also has its share of historic
neighbourhoods.
The urban
core is home to several blocks of typical North American high-rise
office buildings, however segments of the downtown is governed by
height restrictions which prevent buildings from obstructing
certain sightlines between Citadel Hill and Halifax Harbour. This has resulted in some modern high rises
being built at unusual angles or locations.
In recent decades there has been a good deal of conflict between
those in favour of modern development and heritage
preservationists. The former has been occasionally seen as
threatening the historic character of certain areas of the city,
while the latter has been accused of stifling growth in the city
and contributing to the economic stagnation of certain districts.
Much municipal consultation in recent years, such as the HRM by
Design project, has focussed on how to allow modernization and
development to encourage repatriation and renewed community
diversification, while preserving the remaining heritage structures
and character.
Demographics
Halifax as seen from the Dartmouth waterfront
Population trend
| Census |
Population |
Change (%) |
| 2006 |
372,679 |
3.8% |
| 2001 |
359,111 |
4.7% |
| 1996 |
342,851 |
3.1% |
| 1991 |
332,518 |
N/A |
Mother tongue language (2006)
| Language |
Population |
Pct (%) |
| English only |
337,525 |
91.41% |
| Other languages |
20,645 |
5.59% |
| French only |
10,080 |
2.73% |
| Both English and French |
1,010 |
0.27% |
The Halifax Regional Municipality comprise 372,679 residents (2006
census). Approximately 18% of the population is under the age of
14, while 11% are 65 and older.
Ethnic origins
Religious belief
Downtown Halifax at night
Sister cities
Hakodate Japan
(1982).
The cities chose to twin because they both have star forts.[72414]
Campeche
Mexico
(1999).
Campeche was chosen because, like Halifax, it is "a capital of a
state" and is "a city of similar size to Halifax on or near the
coast having rich historical tradition".[72415]
Liverpool
United
Kingdom
(2000). The cities chose to twin because they both
have star forts.
Norfolk
, Virginia
(2006). Norfolk was chosen because, like Halifax,
its economy "depends heavily on the presence of the Armed Forces,
and both cities are very proud of their military history".[72416]
Major parks
Notable Haligonians
See also
References
External links
Halifax Panorama, Chebucto Community
Net.
Tower 2
as a child
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