Montréal
People
The city of Montréal has a population of one million, but the Montréal metropolitan area has 3.1 million people, 1.75 million of whom live within the Montréal Urban region. The population of the city is diverse. The largest groups within the population are Québecois (French Canadians, approximately 319,000) and English Canadians (301,000). However, Montréal is home to numerous ethnic and linguistic groups. The 1996 census reported substantial numbers of Italians (84,000), Irish (43,000), Scots (26,000), Jews (27,000), Greeks (20,000), Chinese (22,000), South Asians (27,000), Haitians (37,000), and Lebanese (14,000). Nearly one-fifth of the population (204,000) is composed of visible minorities. Nearly half of Montréal's population (492,000 people) is bilingual and thus capable of speaking both of Canada's two official languages; 370,000 others speak French only, and 100,000 speak English only. This is a substantial change from the past when most of the English Canadian population spoke only English. However, to the dismay of many Québec nationalists, many Francophones
