Canadian What-If Map Kit (pagebreak warning)

[Linus Van Pelt]

This is great work, Teddy.

Fascinating to see old ridings in MTL and Toronto.

As a kind of side note, it's interesting to see the evolution of the "York Direction" names from their geographically sane origins. In the pre-WWII map, the last before Teddy's maps here start, as you can see here, York County (i.e. present day Toronto+York Region) outside Toronto was just divided into North, South, East and West based on direction, with South being a somewhat urban riding including the industrial town of Weston. Then in the post-1947 map shown here, York Centre is created along with a couple of other suburban ridings, but still the geographic directions basically make sense (though York East is no longer at the east end of the county since the rural part got the new Scarborough name). But after various gradual shifts, you get to the current situation where even though Toronto has been separated from York Region, the only remaining names are a cluster in northwest Toronto, which just makes no sense.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Yeah, they're based on the former municipality names.

But they're not - look at the map I linked to, or the historical descriptions at Teddy's link. York West started out in Etobicoke, York East included all of Scarborough, and York North went up to Lake Simcoe. It's true that where they've ended up, York Centre and West are in the centre and west of North York, and York South-Weston overlaps with the old city of York (though not really its south particularly). It's possible I suppose that some redistricting commission in the 80's or 90's thought this was the reason for the names and that's why they've survived, but that's not the real origin.

(Sort of a Gareth Evans Madagascar type of case, actually, for those who are interested in that sort of thing).