"Newmarket and York Region" Newmarket by Faiza-Ifrah

Our favorite destinations in this region have been King City for the concerts, massive Vaughn Mills for shopping and Rouge Park for outdoor adventures.

The Regional Municipality of York, also called York Region, is a regional municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada, between Lake Simcoe and Toronto. It replaced the former York County in 1971, and is part of the Greater Toronto Area and the inner ring of the Golden Horseshoe. The regional seat is in Newmarket.

York Region covers 1,776 square kilometres from Lake Simcoe in the north to the city of Toronto in the south. Its eastern border is shared with Durham Region, to the west is Peel Region, and Simcoe County is to the northwest. A map of the region[5] showing its major roads and communities is available.
Towns and cities in York Region include:
• Town of Aurora
• Town of East Gwillimbury
• Town of Georgina
• Township of King
• Town of Markham
• Town of Newmarket
• Town of Richmond Hill
• City of Vaughan
• Town of Whitchurch–Stouffville

There is also one First Nation with an Indian reserve, where the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation reside.

York Region's landscape includes farmlands, wetlands and kettle lakes, the Oak Ridges Moraine and over 2,070 hectares of regional forest, in addition to the built-up areas of its municipalities.

Two young explorers

Rouge Park is Canada's premier urban wilderness park. Over 47 km2 (11,500 acres) in size, it is protected park land in the Rouge River, Petticoat Creek and Duffins Creek watersheds, in and near Toronto, Canada's largest city.

• Rouge Park 13 times as big as New York's Central Park, or 33 times the size of London, England's Hyde Park.

• Outcrops of rock formed during the last glacial period are found in Rouge Park and are important to geologists studying seismic activity, in particular the risk of earthquakes in the Toronto area. Faults are visible indicating significant earthquake activity between 80,000 and 13,000 years ago.

• Rouge Park is home to the eastern arm of the Nationally Historic "Carrying Place" trail, which was an original portage route between Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe.

• The mouth of the Rouge River stays frost-free one month longer than northern areas of the river system on the Oak Ridges Moraine.

• Rouge Park has the largest and best examples of Canada's rare Carolinian habitat in Toronto and is the only officially recognized site in the Toronto area.

• Inspired by the scenery during the 1950s, FH Varley, one of Canada's renowned Group of Seven painters, captured the banks of the Rouge River in Markham on canvas as a lasting memory of their beauty.

• Rouge Park's natural setting has provided filming locations for decades, posing as a backdrop for an array of landscapes, from the far north to the bayous of Mississippi. A Canadian filmmaker had a studio in the Park for many years, filming underwater beaver activity and simulating birds in flight.

• Rouge Park is the only place where the Ontario Greenbelt starts from York region and reaches Lake Ontario in the City of Toronto.

• Pros:Close to Toronto, beautiful summers and falls, all season activites
• Cons:The region gets overshadowed by Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Cottage Country
• In a nutshell:Home of Canada's first urban national park