Sherbrooke

Sherbrooke (/ˈʃɜrbrʊk/; ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. Sherbrooke is situated at the confluence of the Saint-François (St. Francis) and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) and census division (CD) of Quebec, coextensive with the city of Sherbrooke. With 154,601 residents as of the 2011 census, Sherbrooke was the sixth largest city in the province of Quebec and the thirtieth largest in Canada. The Sherbrooke Census Metropolitan Area had 201,890 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest metropolitan area in Quebec and nineteenth largest in Canada.

Originally known as Hyatt's Mill, it was renamed after Sir John Coape Sherbrooke (1764–1840), a British soldier who was Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia (1812–1816), and Governor General of British North America (1816–1818).

Sherbrooke is the primary economic, political, cultural and institutional centre of Estrie, and was known as the Queen of the Eastern Townships at the beginning of the 20th century.

Sherbrooke is an important university center with eight institutions educating 40,000 students and employing 11,000 people (3,700 of whom are professors, teachers and researchers). The direct economic impact of these institutions exceeds 1 billion dollars. The proportion of university students is of 10.32 students per 100 inhabitants. In proportion to its population, Sherbrooke has the largest concentration of students in Quebec.

Since the nineteenth century, Sherbrooke has also been an important manufacturing center, although this segment of the economy has experienced a considerable transformation in recent decades as a result of the decline of the city's traditional manufacturing sectors. Today, the service sector occupies a prominent place in the economy of the city, as well as a growing knowledge-based economy.

The Sherbrooke region is surrounded by mountains, rivers and lakes. There are several ski hills nearby and various tourist attractions in regional flavor. Mont-Bellevue Park, a large park in the city, is used for downhill skiing.