Toronto Power Generating Station, Niagara Falls

Ontario contains historic buildings and sites of great diversity and of very differing character. At a micro-scale level, there are individual buildings ranging from houses to hydro-electric generating stations, defined open spaces ranging from small cemeteries to waterfront parks and discrete purpose-built structures ranging from century-old stone bridges to silver mine head-frames.

If we stand back and open our eyes wider, we can identify groupings of historic buildings. Most often they are found intermingled with more recent additions to our environment: streets lined with mature trees shading houses built over a period of hundred years, a Victorian commercial building standing near a church, the spire of which is silhouetted against modern office towers, a small town main street paralleling a river on the banks of which stand factory buildings in continuous usage for almost a century and where the new additions made by each subsequent owner are easily distinguished. And if we look beyond that which the naked eye can see in one glance, and shift in our mind's-eye to the macro-scale level, it is possible to see amongst these groupings of buildings, a larger entity: historic neighhbourhoods, historic towns and historic communication routes.

It would be a mammoth task to list all the historic buildings and sites in Ontario. Municipalities often maintain inventories of identified historic resources in their area and are generally the best source for information about a specific building or site. To assist municipalities and the public in the task of identification and preservation the Ministry provides a variety of information about historic buildings and sites.