Toronto recently surpassed Chicago taking on the title as being North America's fourth most populous city.

Already the largest city in Canada, Toronto's new population estimate is 2.79 million — beating Chicago's 2.7 million people. The numbers do not include the surrounding metropolitan areas (Vaughn, Mississauga, Brampton, Markham etc.) which more than double that number again. While the number of inhabitants has doubled in the past 50 years, Toronto has not seen a major inter city transit or roadway expansion in that time.

Toronto City Council boasted the city's new ranking in their annual Economic Dashboard summary. The report added that Toronto's annual population growth rate has been on a steady increase over the last ten years, currently at about 38,000 people per year.

Although moving up, the "centre of the universe" is still a far cry from Mexico City (the largest in North America) and its massive population of 8,851,080. Montreal is the only other Canadian city to crack the top ten.