The Greater Montreal Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the Canadianprovince of Quebec. As of 2006, Statistics Canada identifies Montreal's Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) (land area 4,259 km²) as Canada's second most populous with a population of 3,635,571 [1]. A slightly smaller area of 3,838 km² is governed by the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) (English: "Montreal Metropolitan Community", a translation rarely used). This level of government is headed by a president (currently City of Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay). The CMM has a land area and an estimated population of 3,493,485.
The inner ring is composed of densely populated municipalities located in close proximity to downtown Montreal. It includes the entire Island of Montreal, Laval, and the Urban Agglomeration of Longueuil.
The outer ring is composed of low-density municipalities located on the fringe of Metropolitan Montreal. Most of these cities and towns are semi-rural. Specifically, the term off-island suburbs refers to those suburbs that are located on the North Shore of the Mille-Îles River, those on the South Shore that were never included in the megacity of Longueuil, and those on the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Peninsula. Communities in that area are also informally referred to as the 450, after the telephone area code that serves the region since 1998.
Due to their proximity to Montreal's downtown core, some suburbs on the South Shore (Longueuil, Brossard, Saint-Lambert, and Boucherville) are usually not included in the off-island suburbs even though they are on the mainland.
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