page_title: Golden Horseshoe
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Golden Horseshoe / Economy
caption_attribution_description: Wine grapes growing in the Canadian wine region of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario in mid-September. The picture also shows a good example of how trellis wires are used in vine training.
context_page_description: The Golden Horseshoe is a secondary region of Southern Ontario, Canada, which lies at the western end of Lake Ontario, with outer boundaries stretching south to Lake Erie and north to Lake Scugog and Lake Simcoe. It includes the Greater Toronto Area. The region is the most densely populated and industrialized in Canada. With a population of 7,826,367 people in its core and 9,245,438 in its greater area, the Golden Horseshoe accounts for over 21 percent of the population of Canada and more than 55 percent of Ontario's population. It is part of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, itself part of the Great Lakes Megalopolis.
  The core of the Golden Horseshoe starts from Niagara Falls at the eastern end of the Niagara Peninsula and extends west, wrapping around the western end of Lake Ontario at Hamilton and then turning northeast to Toronto, before finally terminating at Oshawa.
context_section_description: The economy of this region is very diverse. The Toronto Stock Exchange is the third-largest in North America by market capitalization (after the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq), and seventh-largest in the world. 
  Cities including Hamilton, Oshawa, Oakville, Whitby and Kitchener all contain major large-scale industrial production facilities, Hamilton being dominated by the steel industry and Oakville and Oshawa primarily in the automotive industry. Other significant automotive-production facilities also exist in Brampton, and St. Catharines. While manufacturing remains important to the economy of the region, the manufacturing sector has experienced a significant decline since 2000 as a result of unfavourable currency exchange rates, increasing energy costs, and reduced demand from the United States, which is by far the largest market for Ontario's goods.
  The Port of Hamilton and the Port of Toronto are the two largest seaports on Lake Ontario. The Welland Canal system handles tanker ship and recreational traffic through the Great Lakes. Large rail and truck distribution facilities are located in Toronto, Vaughan and Brampton. Food processing is also a key ingredient in the economy. 
  Niagara Falls has one of the world's largest per-capita tourist economies, benefiting from millions of tourists coming to see its majestic waterfalls, shop in its numerous stores, and visit its many attractions. The winemaking and fruit growing industries of the Niagara Peninsula produce award-winning wines, which are beginning to attract attention around the world, in particular, the ice wine for which the region is known.
  As of 2014, sectors such as information technology, health care, Agtech, tourism, research and finance provide the bulk of growth in the Golden Horseshoe. The suburban cities within Greater Toronto, such as Brampton, Markham, Waterloo Region and Mississauga, are emerging as hubs for technology and innovation.
  Since 2015, the Toronto-Waterloo Region Corridor is a hub for high-growth companies developing breakthrough discoveries.
  The Toronto-Waterloo Corridor is the largest tech cluster in North America outside of Silicon Valley. The area is home to more than 15,000 tech companies, including 5,000+ startups, and nearly 300,000 employees in high-tech industries. About two-thirds of those employees are classified as “tech workers,” which includes programmers, developers, etc. With 8% of the total workforce employed in tech, the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor also has a similar talent density to Silicon Valley and a much greater density than New York, Boston or Seattle.
caption: The Niagara Peninsula is Canada's largest wine growing region and a major producer of Ontario wine.
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