Stratford, Ontario

Stratford (2001 population 29,676) is a city on the Avon River in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Both the city and the river were named when it was first settled in 1832 after Stratford-upon-Avon, England, of Shakespearean fame.

Stratford was incorporated as a town in 1859 and as a city in 1886.

Originally a furniture manufacturing city and railway junction, tourism became a large part of the local economy when the Stratford Shakespeare Festival started in 1953. The annual festival now brings hundreds of thousands of Shakespeare buffs to the area.