"Hull In Pictures" Hull by bwk_michael

Hull is the central and oldest part of the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the west bank of the Gatineau River and the north shore of the Ottawa River, directly opposite Ottawa. As part of the Canadian National Capital Region, it contains offices for twenty thousand fonctionnaires or civil servants.

Hull is in the Outaouais region and is located within the City of Gatineau; the name "Gatineau" itself sometimes is more specifically used to refer to a mostly-suburban former city of Gatineau on the opposite side of the Gatineau River.

In 2002, the Parti Québécois, leading the provincial government, merged the cities of Hull, Gatineau, Aylmer, Buckingham and Masson-Angers into one city. Although Hull was the oldest and most central of the merged cities, the name Gatineau was chosen for the new city. The main reasons given were that Gatineau had more inhabitants, it was the name of the former county, the valley, the hills, the park and the main river within the new city limits: thus its name was less restrictive than Hull. Some argued that the French name of Gatineau was more appealing than a name from England to most French-speaking residents. Hull-Gatineau had been the most popular choice in the polls, but the transition committee excluded all hyphenated possibilities from being included on the ballot. Since the former city of Hull represents a large area distinct from what was formerly known as Gatineau, to be officially correct and specific many people say "vieux secteur Hull" (the former Hull part of town) when speaking of it.

Hull now depends primarily on the civil service as an economic mainstay. A number of federal and provincial government departments are located in here. The policy of the federal government to distribute federal jobs on both sides of the Ottawa River led to the construction of several massive office towers to house federal civil servants in 1970s and 80s; the largest of these are Place du Portage and Terrasses de la Chaudière, occupying part of what had been the downtown core of Hull.