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city in New Brunswick, Canada
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Moncton (; French pronunciation: [mɔŋktœn]) is the most populous city in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, it lies at the geographic centre of the Maritime Provinces. The city has earned the nickname "Hub City" because of its central inland location in the region and its history as a railway and land transportation hub for the Maritimes. As of the 2025 Statistics Canada estimates, the city had a population of 102,378, the first time that a New Brunswick city had a population of more than 100,000 people. The metropolitan population in 2025 was 196,143, making it one of the fastest growing census metropolitan areas (CMA) in Canada. Its land area is 140.67 square kilometres (54.31 sq mi).
Although the Moncton area was first settled in 1733, Moncton was officially founded in 1766 with the arrival of Pennsylvania German immigrants from Philadelphia. Initially an agricultural settlement, Moncton was incorporated in 1855. It was named for Lt. Col. Robert Monckton, the British officer who had captured nearby Fort Beauséjour a century earlier. A significant wooden shipbuilding industry developed in the community by the mid-1840s, allowing for the civic incorporation of the town in 1855.
The shipbuilding economy collapsed in the 1860s, causing the town to lose its civic charter in 1862. Moncton regained its charter in 1875 after the community's economy rebounded, mainly due to a growing railway industry. In 1871, the Intercolonial Railway of Canada chose Moncton as its headquarters. Moncton remained a railway town for well over a century until the Canadian National Railway (CNR) locomotive shops closed in the late 1980s.
Although Moncton's economy was significantly impacted by the collapse of the shipbuilding industry in the 1860s and by the closure of the CNR locomotive shops in the 1980s, the city was able to rebound strongly on both occasions. It adopted the motto Resurgo (Latin: "I rise again") after its rebirth as a railway town. Its economy is stable and diversified, primarily based on its traditional transportation, distribution, retailing, and commercial heritage, and supplemented by strength in the educational, health care, financial, information technology, and insurance sectors. The strength of Moncton's economy has received national recognition in part due to a local unemployment rate that is consistently lower than the national average.
Acadians settled the head of the Bay of Fundy in the 1670s. The first reference to the "Petcoucoyer River" was on the De Meulles map of 1686. Settlement of the Petitcodiac and Memramcook river valleys began about 1700, gradually extending inland and reaching the site of present-day Moncton in 1733. The first Acadian settlers in the Moncton area established a marshland farming community and chose to name their settlement Le Coude ("The Elbow"), an allusion to the 90° bend in the river near the site of the settlement.
In 1755, nearby Fort Beauséjour was captured by British forces under the command of Lt. Col. Robert Monckton. The Beaubassin region including the Memramcook and Petitcodiac river valleys subsequently fell under English control. Later that year, Governor Charles Lawrence issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the Acadian population from Nova Scotia (including recently captured areas of Acadia such as Le Coude). This action came to be known as the "Great Upheaval".
The reaches of the upper Petitcodiac River valley then came under the control of the Philadelphia Land Company (one of the principals of which was Benjamin Franklin). In 1766, Pennsylvania German settlers arrived to reestablish the preexisting farming community at Le Coude. The Settlers consisted of eight families: Heinrich Stief (Steeves), Jacob Treitz (Trites), Matthias Sommer (Somers), Jacob Reicker (Ricker), Charles Jones (Schantz), George Wortmann (Wortman), Michael Lutz (Lutes), and George Koppel (Copple). There is a plaque dedicated in their honour at the mouth of Hall's Creek.
They renamed the settlement "The Bend". The Bend remained an agricultural settlement for nearly 80 more years. Even by 1836, there were only 20 households in the community. At that time, the Westmorland Road became open to year-round travel and a regular mail coach service was established between Saint John and Halifax. The Bend became an important transfer and rest station along the route. Over the next decade, lumbering and then shipbuilding became important industries in the area.
The community's turning point came when Joseph Salter took over and expanded a shipyard at the Bend in 1847. The shipyard grew to employ about 400 workers. The Bend developed a service-based economy to support the shipyard and gradually began to acquire all the amenities of a growing town. The prosperity engendered by the wooden shipbuilding industry allowed The Bend to incorporate as the town of Moncton in 1855. Although the town was named for Monckton, a clerical error at the time the town was incorporated resulted in the misspelling of its name, which has remained to the present day. Moncton's first mayor was the shipbuilder Joseph Salter.
In 1857, the European and North American Railway opened its line from Moncton to nearby Shediac. This was followed in 1859 by a line from Moncton to Saint John. At about the time of the railway's arrival, the popularity of steam-powered ships forced an end to the era of wooden shipbuilding. The Salter shipyard closed in 1858. The resulting industrial collapse caused Moncton to surrender its civic charter in 1862.
Moncton's economic depression did not last long; a second era of prosperity came to the area in 1871, when Moncton was selected to be the headquarters of the Intercolonial Railway of Canada (ICR). The arrival of the ICR in Moncton was a seminal event for the community. For the next 120 years, the history of the city was firmly linked with the railway's. In 1875, Moncton reincorporated as a town, and a year later, the ICR line to Quebec opened. The railway boom that emanated from this and the associated employment growth allowed Moncton to achieve city status on April 23, 1890.
Moncton grew rapidly during the early 20th century, particularly after provincial lobbying helped the city become the eastern terminus of the massive National Transcontinental Railway project in 1912. In 1918, the federal government merged the ICR and the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) into the newly formed Canadian National Railways (CNR) system. The ICR shops became CNR's major locomotive repair facility for the Maritimes and Moncton became the headquarters for CNR's Maritime division. The T. Eaton Company's catalogue warehouse moved to the city in the early 1920s, employing over 700 people.
Transportation and distribution became increasingly important to Moncton's economy in the mid-20th century. The first scheduled air service out of Moncton was established in 1928. During the Second World War, the Canadian Army built a large military supply base in the city to service the Maritime military establishment. The CNR continued to dominate the economy of the city; railway employment in Moncton peaked at nearly 6,000 workers in the 1950s before beginning a slow decline.
Moncton was placed on the Trans-Canada Highway network in the early 1960s after Route 2 was built along the city's northern perimeter. Later, the Route 15 was built between the city and Shediac. At the same time, the Petitcodiac River Causeway was constructed. The Université de Moncton was founded in 1963 and became an important resource in the development of Acadian culture in the area.
The late 1970s and the 1980s were a period of economic hardship for the city as several major employers closed or restructured. The Eatons catalogue division, CNR's locomotive shops facility and CFB Moncton closed during this time, throwing thousands of citizens out of work.
The city diversified in the early 1990s with the rise of information technology, led by call centres that made use of the city's bilingual workforce. By the late 1990s, retail, manufacturing and service expansion began to occur in all sectors and within a decade of the closure of the CNR locomotive shops Moncton had more than made up for its employment losses. This dramatic turnaround in the city's fortunes has been termed the "Moncton Miracle".
The community's growth has accelerated since the 1990s. The confidence of the community has been bolstered by its ability to host major events such as the Francophonie Summit in 1999, a Rolling Stones concert in 2005, the Memorial Cup in 2006, and both the IAAF World Junior Championships in Athletics and several neutral site regular season CFL football games starting in 2010.
Positive developments include the Atlantic Baptist University (later renamed Crandall University) achieving full university status and relocating to a new campus in 1996, the Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport opening a new terminal building and becoming a designated international airport in 2002, and the opening of the new Gunningsville Bridge to Riverview in 2005. In 2002, Moncton became Canada's first officially bilingual city. In the 2006 census, it was designated a Census Metropolitan Area and became New Brunswick's largest metropolitan area.
On 1 January 2023, Moncton annexed an area including Charles Lutes Road and Zack Road.
Moncton lies in southeastern New Brunswick, at the geographic centre of the Maritime Provinces. The city is along the north bank of the Petitcodiac River at a point where the river bends acutely from west−east to north−south flow. This geographical feature has contributed significantly to historical names for the community. Petitcodiac in the Mi'kmaq language has been translated as "bends like a bow". The early Acadian settlers in the region named their community Le Coude ("the elbow"). Subsequent English immigrants changed the settlement's name to The Bend of the Petitcodiac (or simply "The Bend").
The Petitcodiac river valley at Moncton is broad and relatively flat, bounded by a long ridge to the north (Lutes Mountain) and by the rugged Caledonia Highlands to the south. Moncton lies at the original head of navigation on the river, but a causeway to Riverview, constructed in 1968, resulted in extensive sedimentation of the river channel downstream and rendered the Moncton area of the waterway unnavigable. On April 14, 2010, the causeway gates were opened in an effort to restore the silt-laden river.
The Petitcodiac River exhibits one of North America's few tidal bores: a regularly occurring wave that travels up the river on the leading edge of the incoming tide. The bore is a result of the Bay of Fundy's extreme tides. Originally, the bore was very impressive, sometimes between 1 and 2 metres (3 ft 3 in and 6 ft 7 in) high and extending across the 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) width of the Petitcodiac River in the Moncton area. This wave occurred twice a day at high tide, travelling at an average speed of 13 km/h (8.1 mph) and producing an audible roar.
The "bore" became a very popular early tourist attraction for the city, but when the Petitcodiac causeway was built in the 1960s, the river channel quickly silted in and reduced the bore so that it rarely exceeded 15 to 20 centimetres (5.9 to 7.9 in) in height. In April 2010, the causeway gates were opened in an effort to restore the silt-laden river. A recent tidal bore since the opening of the causeway gates measured a 2-foot-high (0.61 m) wave, unseen for many years.
Despite being less than 50 km (31 mi) from the Bay of Fundy and less than 30 km (19 mi) from the Northumberland Strait, the climate tends to be more continental than maritime during the summer and winter seasons, with maritime influences somewhat tempering the transitional seasons of spring and autumn.
Moncton has a warm summer humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) with uniform precipitation distribution. Winter days are typically cold but sunny, with solar radiation generating some warmth. Daytime high temperatures usually range a few degrees below the freezing point. Major snowfalls can result from Nor'easter ocean storms moving up the east coast of North America.
These major snowfalls typically average 20–30 cm (8–12 in) and are frequently mixed with rain or freezing rain. Spring is often delayed because the sea ice that forms in the nearby Gulf of St. Lawrence during the winter requires time to melt, and this cools onshore winds, which can extend inland as far as Moncton. The ice burden in the gulf has diminished considerably over the last decade, and the springtime cooling effect has weakened as a result. Daytime temperatures above freezing are typical by late February. Trees are usually in full leaf by May.
Summers are warm, sometimes hot, and can be somewhat humid due to the seasonal prevailing westerly winds strengthening the climate's continental tendencies. Daytime highs sometimes reach more than 30 °C (86 °F). Rainfall is generally modest, especially in late July and August, and short periods of drought occur on occasion. Autumn daytime temperatures remain mild until late October.
First snowfalls usually occur in late November and consistent snow cover on the ground happen in late December. New Brunswick's Fundy coast occasionally experiences the effects of post-tropical storms. The stormiest weather of the year, with the greatest precipitation and the strongest winds, usually occurs during the fall/winter transition (November to mid-January).
The highest temperature ever recorded in Moncton was 37.8 °C (100 °F) on August 18 and 19, 1935. The coldest ever recorded was −37.8 °C (−36 °F) on February 5, 1948.
Moncton generally remains a "low rise" city, but its skyline encompasses buildings and structures with varying architectural styles from many periods. The city's most dominant structure is the Bell Aliant Tower, a 127-metre (417 ft) microwave communications tower built in 1971. When it was constructed, it was the tallest microwave communications tower of its kind in North America. It remains the tallest structure in Atlantic Canada, dwarfing the neighbouring Place L'Assomption by 46 metres (151 ft).
Text from the Wikipedia article “Moncton”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.