Charlottetown

Under French rule the harbour was the site of Port-la-Joye, where French and British forces fought in the 18th century. In August 1758 a British fleet took the settlement and the rest of the island, deporting the French settlers they could find. In 1764 Captain Samuel Holland of the Royal Engineers chose the site as the county seat of Queens County, and surveys between 1768 and 1771 laid out the street grid and public squares that still shape the historic district. The town was named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, and in 1805 the British garrison built Fort Edward to guard the harbour.

Charlottetown was incorporated as a city in 1855. From 1 to 8 September 1864 it hosted the Charlottetown Conference, called to discuss a union of the Maritime colonies; instead it began the talks that led to Confederation in 1867. Prince Edward Island itself held out until 1 July 1873. The railway and shipping drove industry on the waterfront for decades, and the city took the motto Cunabula Foederis, "Birthplace of Confederation".

For the centenary of the conference the provinces and the federal government built the Confederation Centre of the Arts, opened in 1964. The University of Prince Edward Island followed in 1969, and the Atlantic Veterinary College in 1986. A waterfront convention centre in 1982 and the end of rail service in 1989 turned the old industrial harbour into parks and trails. In 2021 the city council voted to remove a statue of John A. Macdonald after the discovery of graves at the Kamloops residential school, and in 2024 a meteorite strike in the city became the first to be recorded on video with sound.

Confederation is the city's story, and it is told at Province House, where the 1864 delegates met, and at the Confederation Centre of the Arts, a national memorial that holds a theatre, a public library and the Confederation Centre Art Gallery. Province House, closed for conservation in 2015, has been the focus of a long and costly restoration, and while it was shut the Confederation Centre displayed a replica of the conference chamber.

Theatre dominates summer. The Charlottetown Festival, held every year since 1965, is built around Anne of Green Gables: The Musical, adapted from the novel by the island author Lucy Maud Montgomery; it holds the Guinness World Record as the longest-running annual musical and since 2022 has been staged every second year. The festival also commissions new Canadian musicals, and its Young Company gives free noon shows outside the Centre. Victoria Row and Queen Street have many of the city's art galleries, and the UPEI Panthers carry the university's colours in varsity sport.

The city is changing quickly. In 2021 immigrants made up about 14 per cent of residents, the largest groups from China, India, Vietnam, Syria and the Philippines, and the share of residents describing themselves as Christian fell from three-quarters in 2011 to under 60 per cent. Mi'kmaq call the island Epekwitk, and in 2022 the provincial legislature voted to rename the Confederation Bridge after that name.

Charlottetown had about 39,000 people at the 2021 census and an estimated 40,500 in 2022, while its wider census area, at about 83,000, holds roughly half the population of Prince Edward Island. The city grew by 7.5 per cent between 2016 and 2021, and suburbs have spread west, north and east, with the town of Stratford, about 11,000 people, across the Hillsborough River bridge.

As the provincial capital, the city lives largely on government, health care, education and services, with the university, the veterinary college and tourism adding weight. Cruise ships call at a terminal opened in 2007, and the summer season brings theatre-goers and visitors heading for the beaches of the north shore.

The pace is that of a small capital: short commutes, a downtown where people know each other, and a quiet winter after a busy summer. About a fifth of residents are of retirement age. Housing, health care access and the cost of crossing to the mainland are everyday concerns, and in 2025 the federal government cut the toll on the Confederation Bridge and the fare on the Wood Islands ferry.

The island is known across Canada for its shellfish. Malpeque oysters, named after the bay on the north shore, and cultured Prince Edward Island blue mussels lead the menus, and lobster is eaten steamed with butter or in rolls, alongside lightly battered fish and chips. Prince Edward Island potatoes are sold across the country and turn up on every plate, and in summer lobster suppers, a Maritime tradition, draw crowds.

Downtown restaurants are concentrated around Victoria Row, Queen Street and Great George Street, where seafood houses and oyster bars stand beside Lebanese restaurants, Chinese noodle houses and fish-and-chip shops — a reflection of the city's newer communities. The waterfront at Peake's Quay adds harbourside dining in summer.

Cows, an ice cream maker founded in Cavendish in 1983 and now based in Charlottetown, is the island's best-known treat, with its cow-themed shops and merchandise, and it also makes cheddar cheese. Local craft brewing has a home downtown, including a brewpub run by the island's Gahan brewery.