Sherbrooke (2006 population: 147,427)
is a
Canadian city in southern
Quebec. Sherbrooke is situated at the confluence of the
Saint-François (St. Francis) and
Magog rivers in the heart of the
Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a
territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) and
census division (CD) of
Quebec, coextensive with the city of Sherbrooke. Its geographical code is 43.
History
Part of a region historically known as the
Eastern Townships, Sherbrooke was first settled in 1793 by
American Loyalists, including Gilbert Hyatt, a farmer from
Schenectady, New York, who built a flour mill in 1802. The village was named "Hyatt's Mills" until 1818 when the village was renamed after
Governor General Sir John Sherbrooke at the time of his retirement and return to
England.
The city grew considerably on January 1, 2002, by the mergers of the cities of Sherbrooke, Ascot, Bromptonville, Deauville, Fleurimont, Lennoxville, Rock Forest, and Saint-Élie-d'Orford.
Economy
thumb|left|Sherbrooke in 1889.In 2007
Canadian Business Magazine Magazine ranked Sherbrooke as the top place to do business in Canada. The report cites large increases in commercial building permits, strong exports, a highly educated workforce, and low unemployment rate. Another benefit is the daily flight available to and from
Toronto from
Sherbrooke Airport.
Sherbrooke is also the centre of an important agricultural region with many
dairy farms. An important business is the manufacturing of
ice hockey sticks: more of these are made in Sherbrooke than anywhere else in the world. The city has a concrete truss bridge, the first of its kind in the world.
Education
The city is the location of one
French language university, the
Université de Sherbrooke, and since
Lennoxville and Sherbrooke merged in 2002 (see
municipal reorganization in Quebec), of an
English language University,
Bishop's University. U de S is a comprehensive university with schools of
medicine and
law and extensive
graduate programs, while Bishop's is smaller and predominantly
undergraduate. There are three
CEGEPs in Sherbrooke, two of them French-language, the Cégep de Sherbrooke and the Séminaire de Sherbrooke, and one English-language,
Champlain College Lennoxville.
Government
Island Street
The merged city is composed of six boroughs:
Brompton,
Fleurimont,
Lennoxville,
Mont-Bellevue,
Rock Forest-Saint-Élie-Deauville and
Jacques-Cartier.
Infrastructure
Transportation
Sherbrooke Airport, in
Cookshire-Eaton is just east of the city. There are currently no scheduled flights operating out of the airport.
Transdev Limocar provides bus service to
Montreal via
Granby and
Magog. Autobus Jordez links Sherbrooke to
Drummondville and
Trois-Rivières, and also to
Quebec City.
Société de transport de Sherbrooke (STS) provides bus service. It operate 17 bus routes, 11 minibus routes, and 5 taxibus routes.
The city is located at the eastern terminus of
A-10, and directly on the Autoroute Trans-Québécoise (
A-55). A-10 provides a direct freeway connection to Montreal and points west, while A-55 connects directly to Trois-Rivières,
Shawinigan, and points north, as well as to
Interstate 91 to the south (Vermont).
A-410 and
A-610 are the southern and northern bypass roads, respectively.
Public health and safety
Historical buildings located on Dufferin Street.
The suburban Sherbrooke University Hospital ("CHUS" or "Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbooke) has over 5,200 employees, including 550 doctors. It includes a clinical research facility, the Etienne-Lebel Research Center. CHUS operates the Hospital General Hotel-Dieu, located downtown Sherbrooke.
Climate
Demographics
City of Sherbrooke
thumb|Cathédrale Saint-Michel.Language
from
Canada 2006 CensusEthnic origin
The information regarding ethnicities above is from the . The percentages add to more than 100% because of dual responses (e.g. "French Canadian" generates an entry in both the category "French" and the category "Canadian".) Groups with greater than 1,500 responses are included.
Age structure
Census Metropolitan Area
The
Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) includes the cities of Sherbrooke,
Magog and
Waterville, the Parish of Saint-Denis-de-Brompton; the municipalities of Compton, Stoke, and
Ascot Corner, Hatley county and the village of
North Hatley.
The population in 2006 was 186,952.
Indigenous peoples comprised just over 0.6% of the population.
Plymouth-Trinity United Church
was
mother tongue to 90.6% of residents (counting both single and multiple responses). The next most common mother tongues were
English at 5.6%,
Spanish at 1.3%,
Arabic and
Serbo-Croatian languages at 0.6% each,
Persian at 0.4%,
Niger-Congo languages at 0.3%, and
Chinese and
German at 0.2% each.
(Percentages may total more than 100% owing to rounding and multiple responses).About 87% of the population identified as
Roman Catholic in 2001 while 6% said they had no religious affiliation. Among smaller denominations
Statistics Canada counted 1.2%
Anglicans, 0.8%
Muslims, 0.8%
United Church, 0.7%
Baptists, 0.5%
Eastern Orthodox and 0.3%
Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Pentecostals and
Methodists accounted for 0.2% each, while
Buddhists,
Presbyterians,
Seventh-day Adventists,
Mormons and
Plymouth Brethren accounted for 0.1% each.
The area is home to about four thousand recent immigrants (arriving between 2001 and 2006) who now comprise about 2% of the total population. Approximately 13% have emigrated from
Colombia, 12% from
France, 7% from
Afghanistan, 6% from each of
Morocco and
Argentina, 5% from each of
Algeria and
Congo, 4% from
China, and 3% from each of
Burundi,
Tunisia, and
Tanzania. About 2% of these recent immigrants were born in the
United States while about 2% were born in
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Sherbrooke University Hospital Centre (properly, the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Sherbrooke, or CHUS) in the Fleurimont borough
Mount Bellevue and the Sherbrooke skyline
Media
thumb|right|Sherbrooke skyline and Mount Orford.
Notable Sherbrooke residents
The former Winter Prison
hailed from the Sherbrooke area.
John Bassett and
Conrad Black started their careers as
media barons as owner and co-owner, respectively, of the
Sherbrooke Record.
Bordering counties
See also
