Halifax, Nova Scotia (former city)
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This article is about the community and former City of Halifax (1749-1996). For more information about the region, see Halifax Regional Municipality. Please consult the talk pages for input and discussion about various articles before adding information which might pertain to the larger regional municipality or to this specific community.
Halifax (2001 pop.: 119,292 [1],) founded in 1749, is a community and former city in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Halifax was the shire town of Halifax County and the provincial capital.
On April 1, 1996 the provincial government amalgamated all the municipalities within the boundaries of Halifax County into a single-tier regional government named Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). While the City of Halifax and its neighbouring city of Dartmouth, the town of Bedford and the Municipality of the County of Halifax were dissolved at this time, the former city forms part of the urban core of the larger regional municipality and is officially labelled the "capital district" by the HRM government. At the time that the City of Halifax was dissolved, the provincial government altered its status to "Metropolitan Area." with the areas of Bedford and Dartmouth which more commonly known as the "urban core".
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[edit] History
- For information since 1996, consult the History of the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Rudyard Kipling paid homage to Halifax in his poem The Song of Cities:
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- Into the mist my guardian prows put forth,
- Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie,
- The Warden of the Honour of the North,
- Sleepless and veiled am I!
Halifax was established by the British to counter-balance the French presence in Québec and Acadia, which at the time included present-day New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island and the Gaspe Peninsula. For most of its early history, Halifax was the primary North Atlantic base for the Royal Navy, it prospered during times of conflict and languished during times of peace. Despite Halifax's status as the regional centre and colonial capital, the city rarely saw commercial or economic success in its early years.
Halifax only began to benefit from a process of increased rural depopulation and corresponding urban growth in Atlantic Canada during the late 20th century — a demographic shift that was delayed several decades in the region compared with other parts of North America. Today the former city is the centre of HRM's urban core and is benefitting from increased cultural and economic diversity.
[edit] Geography
The original settlement of Halifax occupied a small stretch of land inside a palisade at the foot of Citadel Hill on the Halifax Peninsula, a sub-peninsula of the much larger Chebucto Peninsula that extends into Halifax Harbour. Halifax subsequently grew to incorporate all of the north, south, and west ends of the peninsula with a central business district concentrated in the southeastern end along "The Narrows".
In 1969, the City of Halifax grew westward of the peninsula by amalgamating several communities from the surrounding Halifax County; namely Fairview, Rockingham, Spryfield, Purcell's Cove, and Armdale. These communities saw a number of modern subdivision developments during the late 1960s through to the 1990s, one of the earliest being the Clayton Park development at the southwestern edge of Rockingham.
Since amalgamation into HRM, the term "Halifax" refers to the Metropolitan Area, which follows the boundaries of the former city (ie. Halifax Peninsula and Mainland Halifax), although the communities that comprise Mainland Halifax that were amalgamated into the City of Halifax in 1969 are reasserting their identities.
[edit] Present-day neighbourhoods
Colloquial neighbourhood names
Official neighbourhood names
- Armdale
- Beechwood Park
- Boulderwood
- Bridgeview
- Clayton Park
- Convoy Place
- Cowie Hill
- Fairmount
- Fernleigh
- Green Acres
- Hydrostone
- Jollimore
- Kent Park
- Leiblin Park
- Melville Park
- Mulgrave Park
- Rockingham
- Sherwood Heights
- Sherwood Park
- Spryfield
- Thornhill
- Wedgewood
Historic neighbourhood names
[edit] External links
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- WikiSatellite view at WikiMapia
- Street map from Mapquest
- Topographic map from Topozone
- Aerial photograph from Terraserver
- Halifax Webcam
- Halifax Directory
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Nova Scotia |
|---|---|
| Counties | Annapolis - Antigonish - Cape Breton - Colchester - Cumberland - Digby - Guysborough - Halifax - Hants - Inverness - Kings - Lunenburg - Pictou - Queens - Richmond - Shelburne - Victoria - Yarmouth |
| Regional Municipalities | Cape Breton - Halifax - Queens |
| Incorporated Towns | Amherst - Annapolis Royal - Antigonish - Berwick - Bridgetown - Bridgewater - Canso - Clark's Harbour - Digby - Hantsport - Kentville - Lockeport - Lunenburg - Mahone Bay - Middleton - Mulgrave - New Glasgow - Oxford - Parrsboro - Pictou - Port Hawkesbury - Shelburne - Springhill - Stellarton - Stewiacke - Trenton - Truro - Westville - Windsor - Wolfville - Yarmouth |
| Other Communities | Bedford - Bible Hill - Cole Harbour - Dartmouth - Dominion - Eastern Passage - Fall River - Glace Bay - Greenwood - Halifax (former city) - Liverpool - Louisbourg - Lower Sackville - New Minas - New Waterford - North Sydney - Sydney - Sydney Mines - Weymouth |
