Explore

Discover Toronto’s heritage anywhere, and at your fingertips—whether you’re standing in front of a prominent building or curled up on your couch at home.

Explore the city around you through our in-person events, online articles, and digital tours and exhibits.

Events

In 2024, our in-person programming includes walking tours, our annual Heritage Toronto Awards, and neighbourhood community events. The season is underway. Join us!

October 6 at 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Greek Life in the West End Walking Tour
Everyone knows Greektown on the Danforth, but did you know there was a Greektown that predated it?
October 10 at 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Building Exhibition Place Walking Tour
Discover the history of Exhibition Place, home to the Canadian National Exhibition and Canada’s largest entertainment venue.
October 28 at 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm
49th Annual Heritage Toronto Awards
Join us in celebrating outstanding accomplishments in the heritage sector and to learn about exciting new opportunities and projects.

See All Upcoming Events

Discover our Heritage Stories

Working with our partners, emerging historians, and volunteers, Heritage Toronto curates a series of stories and self-guided map experiences about the people, places, and events that have shaped the city.

Article

Settling In: Women, Immigration, and Domestic Work in Early 20th Century Toronto

From the 1800s onward, Canada encouraged the immigration of single women willing to work as domestic servants.
Article

Rethinking Monuments: Black Histories and Black Futures

In Toronto, many counter-monuments connect to a long history of Black-led activism and advocacy.
Article

Bollywood Dreams and Bazaar Scenes

The Gerrard India Bazaar, Toronto’s ‘Little India’ was born by the founding of the Naaz theatre in the 1970s.
Article

City Kids to Farm Hands: The Home Children

Barnardo’s, the largest sender of Canada’s juvenile emigration program from Britain, had their headquarters in Toronto.
Article

Japanese Internment: Growing Community in Postwar Toronto

Discover how Japanese-Canadians, the target of race-based internment policies, built a postwar community in Toronto.
Article

The Toronto Caravan: A Festival for Everyone

Learn how a community festival came to reflect and amplify Toronto’s status as one of the most multicultural cities in the world.
Article

Black Feminist Activism in the 20th Century

Discover a transformative era in Toronto’s history when Black feminists fearlessly challenged norms and tackled issues ranging from racism, to police violence, to sexism.
Article, Map

North York Recipes for Healing

Meet East Asian community members who through oral histories and recipes share their culinary heritage.
Article

Black History Unburied: Toronto Necropolis Beyond the Grave

Discover notable Black community members from the 19th century, buried at one of the city’s oldest cemeteries, and how they contributed to our modern city.
Article

Black Placemaking: United Through Heritage

Discover how Toronto’s African and Caribbean diaspora shape dynamic spaces for the Black community to connect, invent, and create in the city.
Article

Toronto After Dark: A History of the DIY Scene

Dive into Toronto’s evolving nightlife at the turn of the millennium, exploring new trends, inclusive venues, and the rise of DIY scenes.
Map

Rebels On Stage and Off Script: Toronto’s Alternative Theatre Movement

Meet the rebellious companies, directors, writers, and actors who created Toronto’s alternative theatre scene from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Article

Art and Innovation at the Guild of All Arts

Explore the legacy on Toronto’s art scene built by a self-sufficient artists cooperative, where artists and craftspeople lived, worked, and created.
Article

Free Jazz in a Free City

Discover the Artists’ Jazz Band, a case study in how the city went from “Toronto the Good” to “Toronto the Cool” in the 1960s and 1970s.
Map

Tkaronto Voices

Discover prominent Indigenous individuals and places throughout Tkaronto as we reflect on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Article

Remembering Toronto’s 1918 Anti-Greek Riots

Learn how a misunderstanding between a returned First World War veteran and a Greek diner owner resulted in one of Toronto’s biggest riots and its impact.
Article

Growing Our Future: Commemorating 100 Years of the Chinese Immigration Act

Explore the farming legacy and many contributions of Toronto’s Chinese Canadians despite a long history of exclusion, exploitation, and racism.
Article

Fifty Years of Queer Street West

Learn more about Queen Street West, where a vibrant, queer community has taken shape over the past fifty years.
Map

The Living History of Little Jamaica

Discover the heart of Toronto’s Caribbean population, through the stories of the business owners, artists, and community activists of Little Jamaica.
Map

Healthcare Legacies

Discover Toronto’s history of healthcare, from the development of insulin to the stories of the city's first Black physicians.
Map

Reform City

Explore the origins of Toronto’s early reform organisations and their impact on the city’s social welfare landscape today.
Map

Bad Girls

Meet the women who overcame persecution and prejudice in their fight for opportunity and justice in 19th- and 20th-century Toronto.
Map

Capturing Mid-Century Toronto

Explore the architectural history of the Annex neighbourhood, and the architects who brought a new style to the area and the world stage.
Map

New Places, New Palates: Tamil Cooks in Toronto’s Kitchens

Discover how Tamil cooks became the backbone the restaurant industry in Toronto, and the stories that shape this community of refugees.