An Urban Landscape for the Next Millennium Peter Jacobs Mount Royal Lookout, circa 1915, remains one of the city's biggest tourist attractions. The mountain's public park was designed by the most celebrated landscape artist of his time, Frederick Law Olmsted .
Every city has distinctive features that create it unique identity.
These include major natural and man-made landmarks, as well as smaller, less evident physical attributes. In Montreal, the mountain and the river give primary definition to the city, while Place Ville Marie and the silhouette of St. Joseph's Oratory on the mountain's slope are part of the city's human signature. The river and the mountain have always served as landscape references for human settlements, from the Indian village of Hochelaga, visited by Jacques Cartier in 1535, to the vast expanse of our present urban community. Mount Royal is one of the monteregian hills that puncture the St. Lawrence River flood plain between the foothills of the Laurentian mountains to the north, and the Appalachian mountains to the south. Despite its relatively small extent and vertical elevation, the three summits of this hill dominate the cityscape.