Trivia

One of Canada's top 5 'Smart Cities'

Highest ratio of education to population in North America

First public school in Canada

Canada's first law school and art college

The world's longest downtown boardwalk (runs for over 4km alongside the harbour)

Oldest farmer's market in Canada

First printed book (1752) and first newspaper in Canada (Halifax Gazette)

First place of free speech and freedom of the press in the British Commonwealth

First all electric city lights in North America

First naval dockyard in North America and largest on the eastern seaboard north of Norfolk, Virginia

Oldest salt water ferry service in North America (1752)

Oldest intact executive mansion in North America (Government House circa. 1800)

Oldest zoo in North America (1847) later sold and became the Central Park Zoo in New York

Finest original formal Victorian Public Garden in North America (Public Gardens circa. 1836)

North American centre for Buddhism, world centre for Shambhala Buddhism

Major North American medical center

IWK Children's Hospital is one of North America's top 10 medical facilities

Largest kidney transplant program in Canada

Canada's second largest scientific center

One of only 14 World Energy Cities

First seat of democratic government in Canada (1758)

Location of the first official rules for ice hockey

Largest oceanographic institute in Canada

Home of the 1995 G7 Summit, the summit where Russia was invited to join the world's political leaders

Halifax Explosion on Dec. 6, 1917: the greatest manmade explosion before the atomic bomb

Purdy's Wharf Office Towers - world's first skyscrapers to use seawater for air-conditioning