The Golden Horseshoe was a term coined in the 1950’s for the area of Southern Ontario stretching from the city of Oshawa in the east to the Town of Fort Erie in the southwest.
For the purposes of these pages I will exclude anything east of Oakville as this is the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and deserves pages in its own right and is included in my Central Ontario section, additionally I have included Fort Erie in the Lake Erie North Shore and Pelee Island section of my Southwestern Ontario pages.
For the purposes of these pages The Golden Horseshoe area stretches from Oakville in the east to Niagara Falls in the southwest and encompasses the area up to the City of Brantford in the west.
This region of Ontario is along with Toronto, Canada’s most heavily populated and rapidly growing areas and is the industrial economic heart of the country, it includes major population centres such as:
- Hamilton
- St. Catherines
- Oakville
- Burlington
- Niagara Falls
Most people visiting Ontario Canada for the first time do actually include a visit to the Golden Horseshoe region on their itinerary as a trip to Niagara Falls is invariably on their must see lists but there is much, much more to see and do in this region in addition to “The Falls”.
Some of the many attractions in the region include:
- The area stretching from Niagara Falls to Hamilton is one of Canada’s major wine producing regions whose products can be found on tables around the world.
- The Niagara Escarpment, a United Nations World Biosphere – runs through the region stretching all the way north to the Bruce Peninsula and the well-traveled Bruce Trail is a hiking destination of international renown
- The beautiful picturesque town of Niagara-on-the-Lake draws visitors by the busload all summer long.
- The Welland Canal that connects Lake Ere to Lake Ontario