Regional Municipality of Sudbury, Ontario

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Municipal boundaries of the former Regional Municipality of Sudbury.

The Regional Municipality of Sudbury was a Regional Municipality in Ontario, Canada, which existed from 1973 to 2000.

The regional municipality expanded the boundaries of the city of Sudbury and incorporated the numerous towns and villages outside of the city into six larger towns. The towns were known as Valley East, Nickel Centre, Rayside-Balfour, Walden, Onaping Falls and Capreol. Due to population growth, Valley East was reincorporated as a city in 1997.

Each town and city in the regional municipality had its own mayor and council, and provided many of its own municipal services. The regional municipality had a regional council and chairman of its own, and provided certain services which were deemed to be of region-wide interest (eg. major arterial roads, police services, etc.) Until 1997, the regional chairman was elected to the position from within the regional council; in that year, the position became generally elected by all voters in the regional municipality.

On January 1, 2001, the Regional Municipality of Sudbury was dissolved in a provincially-mandated round of municipal restructuring, and all seven local municipalities were amalgamated into the single-tier city of Greater Sudbury.

One notable fact was that this was the only regional municipality in Ontario not to originate from a former county government; it was created out of the Sudbury District, which still surrounds the current city. Unlike the counties and regional municipalities of Southern Ontario, the more sparsely populated north is divided into unincorporated districts which do not serve as governing bodies. The Regional Municipality of Sudbury was — and the current city of Greater Sudbury still is — the only census division in Northern Ontario which has the structure and function of a Southern Ontario census division.