Niagara Falls

Before Europeans arrived, the land beside the falls belonged to the Iroquoian-speaking Neutral people, whose numbers were greatly reduced by attacks from the Haudenosaunee. The earliest settlers of the township included Philip George Bender and the Scottish-born British Army veteran Thomas McMicken. On 25 July 1814 an invading American army fought British and Canadian forces at Lundy's Lane, close to the falls — one of the bloodiest battles of the War of 1812, with about 1,720 casualties and no clear victor, after which the Americans withdrew.

Tourism began early in the 19th century, and Niagara has had a Black community since at least 1783, which grew as the town became a destination on the Underground Railroad. The Town of Clifton was incorporated in 1856, named after Clifton in Bristol, and in 1882 the nearby community of Drummondville became the Village of Niagara Falls. In 1885 Ontario took the riverbank into public ownership as Queen Victoria Park, which opened in 1888. In 1904 the town and village merged as the City of Niagara Falls, which absorbed Stamford Township in 1963.

Legal gambling arrived in the mid-1990s: Casino Niagara opened in 1996 beside Clifton Hill, and the Fallsview Casino in 2004, setting off a boom in hotels and attractions. While the population of Niagara Falls, New York, fell by half from the 1960s, the Ontario city's more than tripled.

Niagara Falls is a city of spectacle, and has been for two centuries. The tourist area mixes the natural wonder with candid showmanship: wax museums, haunted houses, a Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum and arcades on Clifton Hill, casino entertainment and observation towers. Niagara has been a honeymoon destination since the early 19th century, later promoted by railways.

Behind the neon, the riverbank is managed as a public park. The Niagara Parks Commission, an agency of the Ontario government, looks after the whole Canadian shore of the river, with its gardens, a school of horticulture, a butterfly conservatory and the Niagara Parkway, and the floral displays of Queen Victoria Park are a point of local pride. The Winter Festival of Lights, Canada's largest, draws more than a million visitors between November and January.

History has its own place: the Lundy's Lane battlefield, the Niagara Military Museum and the stories of Black settlers who reached freedom here. The city's residents include many families of Italian origin — Italian is the most common mother tongue after English — and a growing number of newer immigrants. The relationship with the American twin city across the river is close but uneven, and the Canadian side has the stronger economy and the better tourism infrastructure of the two.

Niagara Falls had about 94,000 people at the 2021 census, up from about 88,000 in 2016, and it is part of the St. Catharines–Niagara metropolitan area of about 434,000. About a fifth of residents belong to visible minorities, and English is the mother tongue of about three-quarters, followed by Italian, French, Spanish, Tagalog and Punjabi.

Tourism has been the city's main business since the 19th century and is its most important source of revenue, employing many residents in hotels, casinos, restaurants and attractions. Much of the work is seasonal, peaking in summer. Most recent development has been concentrated in the Clifton Hill and Fallsview areas, while the old downtown on Queen Street is being redeveloped as an arts and culture district.

Away from the tourist strips, the city is largely residential and suburban, with residential neighbourhoods, commercial areas, golf courses and parks spread out beyond the tourist core. Life follows the rhythm of the tourist season: crowded summers and much quieter winters.

The tourist areas feed millions of visitors a year, so much of the food on Clifton Hill and in Fallsview comes from family restaurants, themed restaurants and chains, often with a view of the falls as the main attraction. There are also restaurants along Lundy's Lane and Victoria Avenue and in the downtown.

The real food story lies just beyond the city, on the Niagara Peninsula. It lies in Ontario, one of Canada's two largest wine-producing provinces, with many wineries north of the city around Niagara-on-the-Lake, and it is known above all for icewine — a very sweet dessert wine pressed from grapes that have frozen naturally on the vine, picked only when the temperature is -8°C or colder.

Canadian staples turn up on menus here too, from poutine — fries with cheese curds and gravy — to butter tarts, and the city's large Italian community, whose language is the most common mother tongue after English, is part of its food scene.