Halifax Trivia

• One of Canada's top 5 'Smart Cities'
• Highest ratio of education to population in North America
• First public school in Canada
• Canada's first law school and art college
• The world's longest downtown boardwalk (runs for over 4km alongside the harbour)
• Oldest farmer's market in Canada
• First printed book (1752) and first newspaper in Canada (Halifax Gazette)
• First place of free speech and freedom of the press in the British Commonwealth
• First all electric city lights in North America
• First naval dockyard in North America and largest on the eastern seaboard north of Norfolk, Virginia
• Oldest salt water ferry service in North America (1752)
• Oldest intact executive mansion in North America (Government House circa. 1800)
• Oldest zoo in North America (1847) later sold and became the Central Park Zoo in New York
• Finest Victorian garden in North America (Public Gardens circa. 1836)
• North American centre for Buddhism, world centre for Shambhala Buddhism
• Major North American medical center
• IWK Children's Hospital is one of North America's top 10 medical facilities
• Largest kidney transplant program in Canada
• Canada's second largest scientific center
• One of only 12 World Energy Cities
• First seat of democratic government in Canada (1758)
• Location of the first official rules for ice hockey
• The world's third largest oceanographic institute
• Home of the 1995 G7 Summit, the summit where Russia was invited to join the world's political leaders
• Halifax Explosion on Dec. 6, 1917 - the greatest manmade explosion before the atomic bomb
• Purdy's Wharf Office Towers - world's first skyscrapers to use seawater for air-conditioning