Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Stephen Leacock Museum / Old Brewery Bay · Photo: Jcart1534 · CC BY-SA 3.0The record has a heritage railway station. Canadian National Railway Station, Orillia, Ontario, begun in 1917, is the oldest by its record. Measured against its size, Orillia’s 0.5 per 10,000 residents puts it ahead of 75% of Canadian towns. Local registers add one more place, counted here but not paged: Wikidata holds its number and little else.
Photos show both of the places Orillia’s registers name. To start: Stephen Leacock Museum / Old Brewery Bay, and “Canadian National Railway Station, Orillia, Ontario”.
Photos from Wikimedia Commons, each credited to its photographer with its licence; names open the place’s page. Tap a photo to step through them full screen.
3 old photographs of the town, then the oldest view of one of its historic places, set out by date. Hover a dot for its date; tap a picture to see it full screen.
1909
1917
c. 1923
1924Public domain or CC0, made before 1950, from Wikimedia Commons; old views of places can be drawings, prints or maps of their time. Each credit opens the image’s page.
1867 is the date of Orillia’s municipality in Wikidata, and like many such dates it may record a charter, not the first homes. The first railway station on record, Orillia Railway Station, opened in 1917.
Every place on the registers inside the town, by its designation.
Dots open their places’ pages; hover first to read the name.
What the map shows is the open record: the federal directory in full, and from provincial or municipal lists only the places Wikidata ties to an encyclopedia article.
Points from Wikidata (Parks Canada’s files carry none) and from Québec’s register, as mapped there.
National Historic Sites and Classified Federal Heritage Buildings, Canada’s highest federal recognition. Each one opens its own page.
Recognized Federal Heritage Buildings, heritage railway stations and lighthouses. Each one opens its own page.
Closest of all is Mnjikaning Fish Weirs, in Ramara, 4.6 km off. The mix: 11 National Historic Sites, 3 provincial or municipal listings and a heritage railway station. They belong to 13 towns, chiefly Tay, Ramara and Oro-Medonte.
| Mnjikaning Fish WeirsNational Historic Site · 1650 · 4.6 km away, in Ramara |
| Oro African Methodist Episcopal ChurchNational Historic Site · 1849–1850 · 20 km away, in Oro-Medonte |
| Mission of St. Ignace IINational Historic Site · 1649 · 26 km away, in Tay |
| Canal Lake Concrete Arch BridgeNational Historic Site · 1905–1906 · 31 km away, in Lindsay |
| Saint-Louis MissionNational Historic Site · 1640 · 31 km away, in Tay |
| Old Stone ChurchNational Historic Site · 1840–1854 · 32 km away, in Beaverton |
| The BriarsOntario Heritage Trust easement · 32 km away, in Keswick |
| Canadian National Railways Allandale Station at Barrie, Allandale / Barrie, OntarioHeritage Railway Station · 1900–1906 · 33 km away, in Barrie |
| Bethune Memorial HouseNational Historic Site · 1880–1881 · 35 km away, in Gravenhurst |
| Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons MissionNational Historic Site · 1639 · 36 km away, in Tay |
| Glengarry LandingNational Historic Site · 1814 · 41 km away, in Springwater |
| St. James on-the-LinesOntario Heritage Trust easement · 1840 · 44 km away, in Penetanguishene |
From 2016 to 2021 Orillia added 7.1% of its homes, more than the typical town’s 4.1%. Half of the homes standing in Orillia today were built before 1981. Homes built from 1961 to 1980 make up 27% of Orillia’s, about the typical 27%.
2021 Census, private dwellings by period of construction (Statistics Canada); the typical town is the middle Canadian town of 2,500 or more.
The register links Stephen Leacock to Stephen Leacock Museum / Old Brewery Bay. There are 13 people born here before 1914 with an article to show for it. Fame, by Wikipedia: Franklin Carmichael first, in 16 languages. It starts with Fanny Kelly, born in 1845.
Everyone born in Orillia → Born before 1914, or named by one of the town’s historic places. Birthplaces from Wikidata, each checked against Wikipedia; national historic persons from Parks Canada’s Directory of Federal Heritage Designations, matched by name and life years.
Towns of 37,000 to 38,700 residents, by places on the registers.
Only Neufchatel Est—Lebourgneuf, Pointe-Claire and Fort Erie have more. The typical town its size has 1. 8 of them have nothing on the registers.
| Town | People | Places | Highest | Oldest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orillia | 37,735 | 2 | 1 | 1917 |
| Severn | 15,716 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Chippewas of Rama First Nation | 1,149 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Oro-Medonte | 24,681 | 1 | 1 | 1849 |
| Ramara | 11,551 | 1 | 1 | 1650 |
Housing in Orillia includes 31% built before 1961, against 18% in the typical town. The lists come to 2 historic places, one with the highest designation, including Stephen Leacock Museum / Old Brewery Bay. Only 3 of the 16 towns nearest its size have more historic places. Among the lives from its past: Franklin Carmichael (1890), H. J. Rose (1883) and Charles Howard Curran (1894). Otherwise the figures are ordinary: the designations ran from 1992 to 1994.
Just one: Stephen Leacock Museum / Old Brewery Bay.
31% of its homes were built before 1961, against 18% in the typical Canadian town.
Canadian National Railway Station, Orillia, Ontario — its record dates it to 1917 (Heritage Railway Station).
Provincial and municipal registers outside Québec aren’t open data. Wikidata knows one more listing in Orillia, but without an open description or an encyclopedia article it gets no page.
Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada (Parks Canada).
Sources: Parks Canada, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations · Canadian Register of Historic Places (federal extract) · Wikidata (CC0) for map points, other names and articles · Statistics Canada, 2021 Census (homes by period of construction). Under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Top
Fed