The following list shows every municipality in Ontario (city, town, village, township, regional municipality) and all of the geographic townships which have belonged to a municipality. In other words everything that has or had a local government is here. The information came from two OGS publications. Dunford – Municipal Records in Ontario: History and Guide – OGS (2005) lists every Ontario municipality. Gartner and Prong – Townships of the Province Of Ontario, Canada – OGS (2007) lists all townships. Current and historical townships came from that book, but not the unorganized townships. You should refer to these books for more detail.

The “Type” column tells you what sort of municipality it is, generally its current status. There are two types of townships. A geographic township (G Twp) is a piece of land. You need to know this to find land records and to find where people lived. An administrative township (A Twp) is a form of government, often administering several geographic townships. You need this to find local records. RM means Regional Municipality.

Early names for many municipalities are given.

The list also shows the county and the OGS Branch the municipality is in.

At a future date the list will be expanded to include the former Police Villages and the current hamlets.

To search for a location, simply enter the first few letters of the place name, the township, or the county or district in the search box above the right hand column to automatically reduce the list to only those entries matching your search term.