Effective April 14, 1982 Time zone EST (UTC−5) Area 1,020 km² Province Québec | Area code(s) 450 and 579 Population 147,403 (2015) | |
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Points of interest Arbraska Rigaud, Woo‑hoo!, Saint‑Zotique Beach, Ville de L'Île‑Perrot ‑ Parc Mic, Parc de la Maison‑Valois Destinations Vaudreuil‑Dorion, Rigaud, Hudson, Saint‑Zotique, Saint‑Lazare | ||
Vaudreuil-Soulanges is a regional county municipality in Quebec, Canada. It is located on a triangular peninsula in the western Montérégie region of Quebec, surrounded by the Ottawa River to the north, the St. Lawrence River to the south, and Ontario to the west.
Contents
- Map of Vaudreuil Soulanges Regional County Municipality QC Canada
- Geography
- History
- Subdivisions
- Public Transportation
- Access Routes
- References
Map of Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality, QC, Canada
Geography
Vaudreuil-Soulanges is part of the St-Lawrence Valley. Two million years ago the region was subject to a series of glaciations that covered much of North America. The last in the series was the Wisconsin glaciation. The ice sheet weighed down the landscape. This created the depressions in the land that created the basins for Lake Saint-Louis, Lac des Deux-Montagnes and Lake Saint-Francis. As the ice sheet eroded, the region was mostly submerged 12000 years ago by an inland saltwater sea known as the Champlain sea. Once the glacier was melted the landscape rose again and pushed the saltwater into the sea. 10000 years ago the body of water, now a fresh water lake, has been named by scholars as Lake Lampsilis.
History
Prior to the British conquest, the region was divided into several seigneuries populated by French colonists. The seigneurial system was finally abolished in 1854.
It is the only county in Quebec south of the Ottawa River, owing to the desire to keep the French-speaking population of the area within Lower Canada during the 1791 division of Upper and Lower Canada (precursors to the provinces of Ontario and Quebec). It is also geographically isolated from the Montérégie region, being its only county north of the St. Lawrence River.
Its name comes from the historical division of the area into two counties: Vaudreuil County -- (named after Pierre François de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal, governor of New France) for the communities along the Ottawa River, and Soulanges County -- (named after Pierre-Jacques Joybert de Soulanges from Soulanges, Marne, France) for the communities along the St. Lawrence, a name of Québécois derivation referring to its southerliness.
Since the RCM formation on 14 April 1982, the division of the county into "Vaudreuil" and "Soulanges" is still salient. The "Vaudreuil" area (consisting of the municipalities of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Saint-Lazare, Hudson, L'Île-Perrot, and others) is closer to Montreal and therefore more suburban, populous, and economically and ethnically diverse, compared to the Soulanges area (including the municipalities of Saint-Polycarpe, Saint-Zotique, Coteau-du-Lac, Rivière-Beaudette and Les Coteaux) which is solidly rural, agricultural, and ethnically French-Canadian.
Owing to its geographic isolation within Quebec and growing population as a suburb of the city of Montreal, Elections Canada gave the county its own electoral district in 1997.
Subdivisions
There are 23 subdivisions within the RCM:
Public Transportation
The region is served by the CIT La Presqu'Île and CIT du Sud-Ouest bus services as well as the Vaudreuil-Hudson commuter rail line.
Access Routes
Highways and numbered routes that run through the municipality, including external routes that start or finish at the county border: