The Municipality of Malpeque Bay is a municipality that holds community status in

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

, Canada. It is located in Prince County and Queens County. The municipality derives its name from Malpeque Bay, the second largest bay in the province which forms the municipality's western boundary. The municipality straddles several levels of geographic hierarchy in the province, including the townships of Lot 18 and Lot 20, the parishes of St. David's Parish and Grenville Parish, as well as the counties of Prince County and Queens County. The municipality's seat is in the community of Malpeque.

History

The area was originally settled by the

Mi'kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Miꞌkmaw'' or ''Miꞌgmaw''; ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the no ...

around

2500 BC The 25th century BC was a century that lasted from the year 2500 BC to 2401 BC. Events * c. 2900–2334 BC: Mesopotamian wars of the Early Dynastic period. * c. 2560 BC: Construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza is completed. * c. 2500 BC: R ...

. The Mi'kmaq called the area "Makpaak", meaning "large bay".

Acadian The Acadians (french: Acadiens , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Acadians live in the region of Acadia, as it is the region where the desc ...

families arrived from

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

in 1728 and settled on the west shore of Malpeque Bay, north of present-day Miscouche, naming their settlement "Malpèque" after the Mi'kmaq name. By 1752, the settlement housed a population of more than 200. In 1758, the expulsion of the Acadians began after the fall of

Louisbourg Louisbourg is an unincorporated community and former town in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia. History The French military founded the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1713 and its fortified seaport on the southwest part of the harbour ...

. According to local tradition, when the Malpèque settlers learned of the British arrival at Port-LaJoye, they stripped their church and buried the chapel bell to hide it from British capture. In his 1764 survey of the colony, British surveyor Samuel Holland assigned an area on the east shore of the bay as

Crown land Crown land (sometimes spelled crownland), also known as royal domain, is a territorial area belonging to the monarch, who personifies the Crown. It is the equivalent of an entailed estate and passes with the monarchy, being inseparable from it ...

. Named Prince Royalty for the newly born Prince George (later

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

), nearby Princetown was intended to become the seat of Prince County. Princetown's harbour proved unfavourable for large ships, and saw only limited rural development due to being surrounded by Crown land, thus the townsite failed to develop, and the Acadian name remained well known for the area. A more favourable sheltered harbour was located on the south side of the island, which later became Summerside. Princetown was officially incorporated as a town in 1901, but its status was downgraded to settlement in 1925. The settlement's name officially became Malpeque on 13 March 1947. In 1973, Malpeque was designated a locality within the newly established Community of Malpeque Bay.

Communities

This municipality contains the following communities: Lot 18 *

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

* Darnley *

Fermoy Fermoy () is a town on the River Blackwater in east County Cork, Ireland. As of the 2016 census, the town and environs had a population of approximately 6,500 people. It is located in the barony of Condons and Clangibbon, and is in the Dá ...

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilto ...

* Indian River * Malpeque * Sea View * Spring Valley Lot 20 * Sea View

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultu ...

, Malpeque Bay had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Malpeque Bay, Prince Edward Island Communities in Prince County, Prince Edward Island Communities in Queens County, Prince Edward Island Rural municipalities in Prince Edward Island