The capital and largest city of Newfoundland, and reputedly Canada's oldest city, St John's is located on the eastern side of the AVALON PENINSULA of southeast Newfoundland.

Its landlocked harbour is approached through a long, narrow channel and is protected by the high hills on which the city is built. The origin of the name St John's is not known, but its use appears on a Portuguese map by Rienel (1516-20) as "Rio de San Johem" and later, in a 1527 letter by the English seaman John Rut, as the "Haven of St John's." According to popular folklore, however, the city takes its name from the feast of Saint John the Baptist and the discovery of Newfoundland for England on 24 June 1497 by the Italian discoverer Giovanni Caboto (John CABOT).

Population
St John's experienced slow growth until the NAPOLEONIC WARS, when substantial Irish Roman Catholic immigration increased the population from 3742 residents (1796) to 10 018 (1815). After 1832 natural increase and the migration of outport residents to the capital combined to produce steady growth and a compact, ethnically homogeneous community of Irish and British stock. Though Roman Catholics ceased to form a majority of the city's population after 1911, their influence in the social, cultural and political life of St John's was well entrenched. The steady population increase had produced serious social problems of public health, housing and unemployment that were only partly relieved by immigration to the northeast US and Canada. The city's population doubled from 1946 to 1971 as large numbers of people came to St John's to participate in new employment opportunities in the civil service and service sectors. Between 1971 and 1991 St John's experienced a decline, as many residents moved to MOUNT PEARL and other new suburbs outside the city boundaries. However, due to the annexation of the 2 communities of Wedgewood Park and Goulds in 1992, the city's population increased over 9%. St John's population is still predominantly Anglo-Saxon and Irish.

Economy
The entry after 1949 of cheaper Canadian manufactured goods into Newfoundland caused the city's industries to collapse and thereby reduced the volume of commercial activity at the port. The completion of a paved highway across the island in 1965 enabled mainland distributors to bypass St John's and use CORNER BROOK and CHANNEL-PORT AUX BASQUES to send their goods to island centres. The growth since 1949 of a large civil service supported by the federal, provincial and municipal governments has been the key to the expansion of the city's labour force and to the stability of its economy, which supports a sizable retail, service and business sector. In the mid-1990s the provincial government was the largest employer in the city, followed by Memorial University. The growth of the university has also played a large role in the city's becoming more culturally and ethnically diverse.

Cultural Life
St John's has most of Newfoundland's social, educational and religious institutions. The Benevolent Irish Society and the Convent of the Order of Presentation Sisters date from 1806 and 1833, respectively. Until the province undertook a rural high school building program in the 1950s, the city's denominational high schools provided educational instruction for outport residents. The city is also the site of MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY, the Cabot College of Applied Arts and Technology and the Marine Institute. Also found here are the Newfoundland Museum, the Arts and Culture Centre and the Resource Centre for the Arts. SIGNAL HILL national historic park, which contains Cabot Tower, was conceived in 1897 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Newfoundland's discovery and Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Opened in 1900, the tower was the site the following year for Guglielmo Marconi to receive the first transatlantic wireless message. In 1919 the city was the start of the first transatlantic nonstop airplane flight, when Sir John Alcock and Arthur Brown flew to Ireland.