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| London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor with a metropolitan area population of 457,720; the city proper had a population of 352,395 in the 2006 Canadian census.
London is the seat of Middlesex County, at the forks of the non-navigable Thames River, halfway between Toronto and Detroit, Michigan. London and the surrounding area (roughly, the territory between Kitchener-Waterloo and Windsor) is collectively known as Southwestern Ontario. The City of London is a single-tier municipality, politically separate from Middlesex County though it remains the official county seat.
London was first settled by Europeans in 1826 and was incorporated as a city on July 1, 1855. Since then, London has grown into the largest Southwestern Ontario municipality and the city has developed a strong focus towards education, health care, tourism, manufacturing, economic leadership and prosperity.
The area was formed during the retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age, which produced areas of marshland, notably the Sifton Bog (which is actually a fen), as well as some of the most agriculturally productive areas of farmland in Ontario. The eastern half of the city is generally flat, with the exception being around the five neighboring ponds in the south, with gently rolling hills in the west and north.
The Thames River dominates London's geography, with the North Thames River and Thames River meeting at the centre of the city known as "The Forks" or "The Fork of the Thames." The North Thames runs through the man-made Fanshawe Lake, located in northeast London. Fanshawe Lake was created by Fanshawe Dam, which was constructed to protect the areas down river from catastrophic flooding which affected the city on two occasions in the past (1883 and 1937).
London has a humid continental climate. Because of its location in the continent and proximity to the Great Lakes, London experiences very contrasting seasons. The summers are usually warm to hot and humid (although slightly cooler than Toronto or Windsor), while the winters are normally quite cold but with frequent thaws. London has the most thunderstorms of any area in Canada due to the lake breeze convergence. For its southerly location within Canada, it does receive quite a lot of snow, averaging slightly over 200 cm (80 inches) per year. The majority of this is lake effect snow originating from Lake Huron, some 60 km (40 miles) to the northwest which occurs when strong, cold winds blow from that direction.
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