Markham is a city in the Regional Municipality of York in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is approximately 30 km (19 mi) northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the 2016 Census, Markham had a population of 328,940,[1][3] which ranked it the largest in York Region, fourth largest in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and 16th largest in Canada. Real Estate Agents in Markham| Markham Realtors
The city gained its name from the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe (in office 1791–1796), who named the area after his friend, William Markham, the Archbishop of York from 1776 to 1807. The first European settlement in Markham occurred when William Berczy, a German artist and developer, led a group of approximately sixty-four German families to North America. While they planned to settle in New York, disputes over finances and land tenure led Berczy to negotiate with Simcoe for 64,000 acres (260 km2) in Markham Township in 1794. Since the 1970s, Markham rapidly shifted from being an agricultural community to an industrialized municipality due to urban sprawl from neighbouring Toronto. Markham changed its status from town to city on July 1, 2012.
Post-secondary
Seneca College, Markham Campus
Seneca College has a campus in Markham, at highways 7 and 404, in the York Region business district. This location opened in 2005, offering full and part-time programs in business, marketing and tourism, and also the college’s departments of Finance, Human Resources and Information Technology Services. Since 2011 the campus has also housed the Confucius Institute. York University has plans to open a new campus in Markham.
Primary and secondary schools. Real Estate Agents in Markham| Markham Realtors
Markham has a number of both public and Catholic high schools. All have consistently scored high on standardized tests and have some of the highest rate of graduates attending universities.
The York Region District School Board operates secular English public schools. The York Catholic District School Board operates English Catholic schools. The Conseil scolaire Viamonde operates secular French schools, and the Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir operates Catholic French schools.
York Region District School Board
Bill Crothers Secondary School
Bill Hogarth Secondary School
Bur Oak Secondary School
Markham District High School
Markville Secondary School
Middlefield Collegiate Institute
Milliken Mills High School
Pierre Elliott Trudeau High School
Thornhill Secondary School
Thornlea Secondary School
Unionville High School
York Catholic District School Board
St. Brother André Catholic High School
St. Augustine Catholic High School
St. Robert Catholic High School
Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy
Economy
Markham mayor Frank Scarpitti at the AMD Markham campus during the AMD 50th Anniversary celebration.
In the 19th century Markham had a vibrant, independent community with mills, distilleries and breweries around the Highway 7 and 48 intersection. The Thomas Speight Wagon Works exported products (wagons, horsecars) around the world, and Markham had a reputation as being more active than York (the former name for Toronto) early on. Most of these industries disappeared leaving farming as the main source of business.
Light industries and businesses began to move into Markham in the 1980s attracted by land and lower taxes. Today, it claims to be “Canada’s Hi-Tech Capital” with a number of key companies in the area, such as IBM, Motorola, Toshiba, Lucent, Honeywell, Apple, Genesis Microchip, and is home to the head office of graphics card producer ATI (recently merged with AMD). Over 1,100 technology and life science companies have offices in Markham, employing over one fifth of the total workforce. In 2014, the top five employers in the city in order are IBM Canada, the City of Markham, TD Waterhouse Inc., Markham Stouffville Hospital and AMD Technologies Inc.
Yogen Früz has its headquarters in Markham.
Markham also maintains economic and cultural cooperation agreements with the city of Laval, Quebec, which is the second largest city in the Greater Montreal area.