Place:Lanaudière, Québec, Canada

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NameLanaudière
TypeAdministrative region
Coordinates46.77°N 73.83°W
Located inQuébec, Canada
Contained Places
Historical county
Berthier ( 1982 - )
Regional county municipality
D'Autray RCM ( 1982 - )
Joliette RCM ( 1982 - )
L'Assomption RCM ( 1983 - )
Les Moulins RCM ( 1982 - )
Matawinie RCM ( 1982 - )
Montcalm RCM ( 1982 - )


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Lanaudière is one of the seventeen administrative regions of Quebec, Canada, situated immediately to the northeast of Montreal. It has a total population (2016 Census) of 494,796 inhabitants, an increase of 4.9% over the 2011 census.[1]


Contents

Geography

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

The region of Lanaudière is part of central Quebec and is located between the Saint Lawrence River and the Laurentian Mountains, between Mauricie on the west and the Laurentides (on the east). Lanaudière attracts a good deal of interest from vacationers due to its unique character founded largely on the harmony between its culture and the surrounding natural environment. Lanaudière's area of 12,413.73 square kilometres (4,792.97 sq mi) stretches northwest from a shoreline of 60 kilometers (37 mi) on the Saint Lawrence River. Lanaudière is generally rural, while the urban areas are generally concentrated in the south of the region, such as Repentigny, Terrebonne and Berthierville. The altitude rises as one goes northwards; it is 20 meters (66 ft) near the Saint Lawrence River to almost 800 meters (2,600 ft) at the top of mountains near Saint-Donat and Saint-Zénon.

Lanaudière is made up of three distinct geographical groupings: the southern plain has cities and farming villages and includes many historical locations; the piedmont in the centre has become a vacation spot due to its numerous lakes and natural attractions, and the Laurentian Plateau in the far north in the forested country is known for its fishing and hiking.

The map in Wikipedia illustrates Lanaudière's position within Québec.

History

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

The region of Lanaudière owes its name to history, for it perpetuates the memory of Marie-Charlotte de Lanaudière, daughter of the lord of Lavaltrie and wife of the businessman Barthélemy Joliette (1789-1850), descendant of the famous explorer Louis Jolliet (1645-1700). Lanaudière evokes the lineage of the lords De Lanaudière who contributed, over seven generations, to the defence and the development of the French colonies in America, to that of France and to that of the region.

Research Tips

French names for places

Because French is the one official language of Québec, WeRelate employs the French names for places within the province. Many placenames will be similar to their counterparts in English, with the addition of accents and hyphens between the words. The words "Saint" and "Sainte" should be spelled out in full. Placenames should be made up of four parts: the community (or parish, or township, or canton), the historic county, Québec, Canada. You may find placenames red-linked unless you follow these conventions.

Local government structure

The Province of Québec was made up of counties and territories. Counties in Québec were established gradually as the land was settled by Europeans. Each county included communities with some form of local governement (often church-based). Territories referred to the undeveloped sections under the control of the government in charge of the whole province at the time. The communities included townships and/or cantons, depending on the English/French makeup of the county concerned, and also included ecclesiastical parishes with somewhat different boundaries which could overlap with local townships or cantons. Ecclesiastical parish registers have been retained and are available to view (online through Ancestry). Since the 1980s many small townships and parishes are merging into larger "municipalities", often with the same name as one of their components.

Beginning in 1979 the historic counties of Québec were replaced by administrative regions and regional county municipalities (abbreviated as RCM in English and MRC in French). Regional county municipalities are a supra-local type of regional municipality, and act as the local municipality in unorganized territories within their borders. (An unorganized area or unorganized territory is any geographic region in Canada that does not form part of a municipality or Indian reserve. There is a list in Wikipedia.) There are also 18 equivalent territories (TEs) which are not considered to be RCMs. These are mostly large cities with their suburbs, but include 4 very large geographical areas where the population is sparse.

The administrative regions (above the RCMs in the hierarchy) are illustrated on a map in Wikipedia. The regions are used to organize the delivery of provincial government services and there are conferences of elected officers in each region. The regions existed before the change from historic counties to regional county municipalities.

The above description is based on various articles in Wikipedia including one titled Types of municipalities in Quebec

NOTE: WeRelate refers to Québec communities as being within their historic counties because this is the description which will be found in historical documents. FamilySearch and Quebec GenWeb follow the same procedure. However, it is always wise to know the current RCM as well in order to track these documents down in local repositories and also to describe events which have taken place since 1980.

Because the former or historic counties and the modern regional county municipalities can have the same names but may cover a slightly different geographical area, the placenames for Regional County Municipalities or "Territories Equivalent to regional county municipalities" are distinguished by including the abbreviation "RCM" or "TE" following the name.

Historic counties (which were taken out of use in about 1982) were made up of townships or cantons. The two words are equivalent in English and French. Eventually all the Québec cantons in WeRelate will be described as townships. Many townships disappeared before 1980 with the growth of urbanization.

If the word parish is used, this is the local ecclesiastical parish of the Roman Catholic Church. Parish boundaries and township or canton boundaries were not always the same.

The WeRelate standard form for expressing a place in Québec is township/canton/parish, historic county, Québec, Canada,
or local municipality, administrative region, Québec, Canada for places established after the changes of the 1980s.

Other Sources

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Lanaudière. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.