Contrecœur () is a city in southwestern

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, Canada on the south shore of the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawren ...

. The population as of the

Canada 2021 Census The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canada, Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, whic ...

was 9,480. Contrecœur is approximately northeast of

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and is accessible via Autoroute 30, the main road from the southwest, which continues on to

Sorel-Tracy Sorel-Tracy (; ) is a city in southwestern Quebec, Canada and the geographical end point of the Champlain Valley. It is located at the confluence of the Richelieu River and the St. Lawrence River, on the western edge of Lac Saint-Pierre, down ...

History

In 1672,

Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur (; 1596 – May 1, 1688) was an officer in the Carignan-Salières Regiment and the first seigneur of Contrecœur. His son, François-Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur, inherited the seigneury from his father. Antoine P ...

, a soldier of the

Carignan-Salières Regiment The Carignan-Salières Regiment was a 17th-century French military unit formed by the merging of two other regiments in 1659. Approximately 1,100 men from the regiment were sent to New France in 1665 to deal with the threat of the Iroquois to the ...

, originally from Saint-Chef, Isère, France, was granted a

seigneury A seigneur () or lord is an originally feudal system, feudal title in Ancien Régime, France before the French Revolution, Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. The seigneur owne ...

King Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monar ...

. He and 68 other pioneers founded the town in 1681, and it is named in his honour. A migratory bird sanctuary is located near the town on Contrecœur Island. Contrecœur is currently twinned with

Saint-Chef Saint-Chef () is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. The commune is named after Saint Chef, who was born in the nearby hamlet of Arcisse. Climate Saint-Chef has a semi-continental climate characterized by generally hi ...

, in southeast France, and has been since 1993. The steel mill in Contrecoeur-West was in 1994 privatised by the Quebec government. The initial owner of Norambar was

Stelco Stelco Holdings Inc. (known as U.S. Steel Canada from 2007 to 2016) is a Canadian steel company based in Hamilton, Ontario. Stelco was founded in 1910 by the amalgamation of several smaller firms. It continued on for almost 100 years until it ...

, until Mittal purchased it in 2004. The steel mill in Contrecoeur-Est, Sidbec-Dosco, was privatised in 1994 into Ispat International. Mittal purchased that too, and merged with Arcelor to form

ArcelorMittal ArcelorMittal S.A. is a Luxembourg-based multinational steel manufacturing corporation, headquartered in Luxembourg City. It is ranked second on the list of steel producers behind Baowu, and had an annual crude steel production of 58 millio ...

in 2006. The Contrecoeur-West and Contrecoeur-East were administratively merged into ArcelorMittal Long Products Canada.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), 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 culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Contrecoeur 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. Population trend: * Population in 2021: 9,480 (2016 to 2021 population change: 20.2%) * Population in 2016: 7,887 * Population in 2011: 6,252 * Population in 2006: 5,678 * Population in 2001: 5,222 * Population in 1996: 5,331 * Population in 1991: 5,501 * Population in 1986: 5,553 * Population in 1981: 5,449

Education

Centre de services scolaire des Patriotes operates francophone public schools, including: * École des Coeurs-Vaillants * École Mère-Marie-Rose The Riverside School Board operates anglophone public schools, including: * Harold Sheppard Elementary School in

Heritage Regional High School Heritage Regional High School (HRHS) is a public secondary school located in Longueuil, Quebec, Quebec, Canada. It was formed in the 2003 merger of Macdonald-Cartier High School of Saint-Hubert, Quebec, with Richelieu Valley Regional High School o ...

Longueuil Longueuil () is a city in the province of Quebec, Canada. It is the seat of the Montérégie, Montérégie administrative region and the central city of the urban agglomeration of Longueuil. It sits on the South Shore (Montreal), south shore o ...

Gallery

Rue de la Station Contrecoeur 1910.jpg, Rue de la Station Contrecœur around 1910

References

External links