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Ontario's Greenbelt
Ontario’s Greenbelt, also known as the Greater Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt, is about 800,000 hectares of permanently protected green space and farmland in Ontario. It is one of many prominent greenbelts worldwide, including the British Columbia Agricultural Land Reserve in Canada and greenbelts in Copenhagen, Brazil, London, England and elsewhere. The Greenbelt forms a “belt” around the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada’s most densely populated area. The region includes municipalities such as Toronto, Oakville, Pickering, Hamilton, and Mississauga and stretches from Rice Lake in the east to the Niagara River in the west. The Greenbelt was created in 2005 to protect high-quality farmland and environmentally sensitive features like forests, lakes and sensitive species from urban sprawl and development.
