The only walled city north of Mexico — where French is the living daily language, the Château Frontenac is the world's most photographed hotel, and the Plains of Abraham changed the course of North American history in 15 minutes
Québec City (550,000; metro 830,000), the capital of Québec province, is the oldest French-founded city in North America and the only city north of Mexico to retain its original fortification walls (a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985). The walled Old Town (Vieux-Québec) divides into the Haute-Ville (Upper Town) perched 98 metres above the St. Lawrence River on Cape Diamond, and the Basse-Ville (Lower Town) including the Quartier Petit-Champlain — one of the oldest commercial streets in the Americas (founded 1608). The Château Frontenac (1893), a grand railway hotel built in the style of…
Samuel de Champlain founded Québec (from the Algonquin word 'kébec', meaning 'where the river narrows') in 1608 at the foot of Cape Diamond — the first permanent European settlement in Canada. The Battle of the Plains of Abraham (13 September 1759) was a 15-minute engagement between British forces under General Wolfe and French forces under the Marquis de Montcalm that decided the fate of New France: both generals died of their wounds within 24 hours, and the subsequent French surrender ended French colonial rule over Canada. Under the Quebec Act (1774), Britain guaranteed French Canadians th…