Lanark County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

and

census division Census divisions, in Canada and the United States, are areas delineated for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation; they have no government in and of themselves. The census divisions of Canada are second-level census geographic uni ...

located in the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. Its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, which was first settled in 1816Brown, Howard Morton, 1984. Lanark Legacy, Nineteenth Century Glimpses of on Ontario County. Corporation of the County of Lanark, Perth, Ontario and General Store Publishing House, Renfrew, Ontario. p. 98 and was known as a social and political capital before being overshadowed by a city known today as

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

. Most European settlements of the county began in 1816, when Drummond, Beckwith and Bathurst townships were named and initially surveyed.Brown, Howard Morton, 1984. Lanark Legacy, Nineteenth Century Glimpses of on Ontario County. Corporation of the County of Lanark, Perth, Ontario and General Store Publishing House, Renfrew, Ontario. The first farm north of the Rideau was cleared and settled somewhat earlier, in 1790.Brown, Howard Morton, 1984. Lanark Legacy, Nineteenth Century Glimpses of on Ontario County. Corporation of the County of Lanark, Perth, Ontario and General Store Publishing House, Renfrew, Ontario. p. 9 The county took its name from the town of

Lanark Lanark ( ; ; ) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, located 20 kilometres to the south-east of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Hamilton. The town lies on the River Clyde, at its confluence with Mouse Water. In 2016, the town had a populatio ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. Nearly all the townships were named after British public and military figures from the era of early settlement.

History

Bathurst District

In 1824, Lanark County was severed from Carleton County in Bathurst District, and it consisted of the following townships and lands: When Carleton was withdrawn from the District in 1838, Renfrew County was severed from part of Lanark, but the two remained united for electoral purposes. By 1845, all lands in the District had been surveyed into the following townships: In 1851, the township of Pakenham was transferred from Renfrew to Lanark.

United Counties of Lanark and Renfrew

Effective January 1, 1850, Bathurst District was abolished, and the "United Counties of Lanark and Renfrew" replaced it for municipal and judicial purposes. The counties remained united for electoral purposes in the

Parliament of the Province of Canada The Parliament of the Province of Canada was the legislature for the Province of Canada, made up of the two regions of Canada West (formerly Upper Canada, later Ontario) and Canada East (formerly Lower Canada, later Quebec). Creation of the Parl ...

, referred to as the County of Lanark, until Renfrew gained its own seat in 1853. The separation of Renfrew from Lanark began in 1861, with the creation of a Provisional Municipal Council that held its first meeting in June 1861. The United Counties were dissolved in August 1866.

Current constituent municipalities

Smiths Falls Smiths Falls is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, southwest of Ottawa. As of the 2021 census it has a population of 9,254. It is in the Census division for Lanark County, but is administratively separated from the county. The Rideau Canal ...

is a separated town and is for municipal purposes not part of the county. It is mostly located in Lanark, while its southern part was annexed from the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville.

Geography

Lanark County Ontario Sign on Highway 29

The county is located in the sub-region of

Southern Ontario Southern Ontario is a Region, primary region of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada, with approximately 13.5 million people, approximately 36% o ...

named Eastern Ontario. Geologically, the northern part of the county is in the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield ( ), also called the Laurentian Shield or the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), th ...

and the southern part is in the Great Lakes Basin. The county has two large rivers, the

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

and Rideau, each of which empty into the

Ottawa River The Ottawa River (, ) is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is named after the Algonquin word "to trade", as it was the major trade route of Eastern Canada at the time. For most of its length, it defines the border betw ...

. The landscape is varied including Canadian Shield (with gneiss,

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

and

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

) as well as

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

plains, with a variety of tills, sands and clays left from the melting of glaciers in the last ice age. At the time of settlement, most of the county was covered in

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (approximately 23.5° to 66.5° N/S of the Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ran ...

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

forest; the dominant forest trees included

maple ''Acer'' is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated si ...

, hemlock, oak and

beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

. Some of the higher ridges in the west of the county were likely once natural fire barrens, with a distinctive fauna and flora. The clearance of forests began with early settlement, at which time one of the important exports from the area was

potash Potash ( ) includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water- soluble form.

, made from the ashes of the trees burned in clearing. The natural diversity of the landscape supports over 1,200 species of plants in the county flora. Seventeen areas have been documented as outstanding examples of plant diversity; these include Blueberry Mountain, Burnt Lands Alvar, Clay Bank Alvar, Christie Lake, Murphy's Point Provincial Park and Almonte Town Park. The county also has 47 provincially significant wetlands. Some of the largest are Blueberry Marsh (north of Perth), the Innisville Wetlands (upstream of Mississippi Lake) and the Goodwood Marsh south of Carleton Place. In addition to David White's list of 17 areas of plant diversity, Paul Keddy lists 17 special places in the county. Both lists have the Burnt Lands Alvar, the Christie Lake Barrens and Murphy's Point Provincial Park. Keddy's list adds areas such as Playfairville Rapids, Lavant/Darling Spillway and the Carleton Place Hackberry stand. Also of interest is an old shoreline which crosses the county diagonally, approximately from Almonte in the northeast to Perth in the southwest. This shoreline was formed about 12,000 years ago near the end of the last ice age when much of the Ottawa Valley was inundated by the Champlain Sea. Many areas below this old shoreline are flat clay plains, with occasional outcrops of gneiss or limestone ridges. Some of the distinctive southern animals in the county include five-lined skinks (Ontario's only species of lizard), black ratsnakes and southern flying squirrels. Unusual southern plants include arrow arum, a nationally rare wetland plant found near Mississippi Lake. The south-facing cliffs over Big Rideau Lake, including Foley Mountain, have a slightly warmer climate, and therefore support an unusual southern flora including shagbark hickory, tall cinquefoil (''Potentilla arguta'') and a rare fern, blunt-lobed woodsia. Cliff Bennett provides a list of 26 routes for canoe and kayak exploration of the county.

Demographics

From the

in the 2021 Census of Population 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 ...

, Lanark County 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.

Economy

The county is one of the top centres of

maple syrup Maple syrup is a sweet syrup made from the sap of maple trees. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before winter; the starch is then converted to sugar that rises in the sap in late winter and early spring. Ma ...

production in Ontario and describes itself as "The Maple Syrup Capital of Ontario".

Recreation

There are two provincial parks in Lanark County: Murphy's Point Provincial Park on Big Rideau Lake and Silver Lake Provincial Park along Highway 7 near the west end of the county. The Rideau Trail and Trans-Canada Trail both go through Lanark County. There are also several conservation areas run by the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority, the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, and the Mississippi Madawaska Land Trust. The K&P rail trail goes through the northwest corner of the county.

References

Bibliography

External links

* {{Subdivisions of Ontario Counties in Ontario