Current Time in Markham, Canada

Markham is a city in southern Ontario, Canada, forming part of the Regional Municipality of York immediately north-east of Toronto. It occupies gently rolling country between the Rouge River valley and the Oak Ridges Moraine, and although it is firmly part of the Greater Toronto Area, patches of farmland, conservation land and river woodland still separate its neighbourhoods.

With a population of about three hundred and forty thousand, Markham is one of the largest municipalities in Canada that is not a provincial capital. It is widely described as the country's high technology capital, since more than a thousand technology and life sciences companies operate here, including the Canadian headquarters or major offices of IBM, AMD, Honeywell, Huawei and Motorola. This concentration of research and development gives the city an economic profile unusual for a suburban community.

European settlement began in the 1790s, when Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe granted land to German-speaking settlers led by William Berczy, followed by Pennsylvania German farmers and later by British immigrants. The area developed as a farming township with milling villages at Markham, Unionville and Thornhill. It remained rural until the 1970s, after which planned suburban expansion transformed it within a generation, and it was formally incorporated as a city in 2012.

The historic main streets are the most attractive parts of the modern city. Unionville's Main Street, with its wooden Victorian shopfronts, clapboard houses and millpond, is one of the best-preserved nineteenth-century village streets in Ontario and a favourite film location. Markham Village has a similar character on a smaller scale. Elsewhere the landmarks are contemporary, including the Markham Pan Am Centre built for the 2015 games, the Aaniin Community Centre, and Pacific Mall, the largest Chinese indoor shopping centre in North America.

Markham is among the most diverse cities in Canada, with a clear majority of residents belonging to visible minority groups and very large communities of Chinese, South Asian and Caribbean origin. This is reflected everywhere in daily life, from the restaurants and supermarkets of Highway 7 to the Lunar New Year and Diwali celebrations that fill public squares. The Flato Markham Theatre presents music and drama, the Varley Art Gallery holds work by the Group of Seven painter Frederick Varley, and the Markham Museum preserves historic buildings on an open-air site.

Transport relies heavily on the road network, with Highways 404, 407 and 7 crossing the city, but public transport has grown quickly. GO Transit commuter trains on the Stouffville line run to downtown Toronto, and the Viva bus rapid transit system operates along the main east and west corridor. Toronto Pearson International Airport lies about forty minutes away.

Education has expanded with the opening of a York University campus in the city centre, alongside Seneca Polytechnic facilities and a strong public school system.

Markham is important as a model of the modern Canadian suburb, prosperous, technologically driven and genuinely multicultural, while keeping enough of its village past to give visitors something to see.