Quebec City (/kwɪˈbɛk/ ⓘ or /kəˈbɛk/;[12] French: Ville de Québec), officially Québec ([kebɛk] ⓘ),[13] is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459,[14] and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311.[15] It is the eleventh-largest city and the seventh-largest metropolitan area in Canada. It is also the second-largest city in the province, after Montreal. It has a humid continental climate with warm summers coupled with cold and snowy winters.
Explorer Samuel de Champlain founded a French settlement here in 1608, and adopted the Algonquin name. Quebec City is one of the oldest European settlements in North America. The ramparts surrounding Old Quebec (Vieux-Québec) are the only fortified city walls remaining in the Americas north of Mexico. This area was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985 as the “Historic District of Old Québec”.[16][17]