It remains an important centre of commerce, aerospace, transport, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology, design, education, art, culture, tourism, food, fashion, video game development, film, and world affairs. Historically the commercial capital of Canada, Montreal was surpassed in population and in economic strength by Toronto in the 1970s. Montreal is the second-largest primarily French-speaking city in the developed world, after Paris. Montreal is one of the most bilingual cities in Quebec and Canada, with over 59% of the population able to speak both English and French.

In the larger Montreal Census Metropolitan Area, 65.8% of the population spoke French at home, compared to 15.3% who spoke English. French is the city's official language and in 2016 was the main home language of 49.8% of the population, while English was spoken by 22.8% at home, and 18.3% spoke other languages (multi-language responses were excluded from these figures).

The broader metropolitan area had a population of 4,098,247. In 2016, the city had a population of 1,704,694, with a population of 1,942,247 in the urban agglomeration, including all of the other municipalities on the Island of Montreal. The city is situated 196 km (122 mi) east of the national capital Ottawa, and 258 km (160 mi) south-west of the provincial capital, Quebec City. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which got its name from the same origin as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard.

Founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie, or 'City of Mary', it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city.

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