Mirabel, Quebec

Mirabel (French pronunciation: [miʁabɛl]) is a suburb of Montreal, located on the North Shore in southern Quebec.

Mirabel 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 Mirabel. Its geographical code is 74. Prior to 2002, Mirabel was not only a city but also comprised the Mirabel Regional County Municipality.

The city is home to Montréal–Mirabel International Airport.

Mirabel was formed through the expropriation of private lands and the merger of 8 municipalities in 1971. The former municipalities were (with their individual founding dates in brackets): Saint-Augustin (1855); Saint-Benoît (1855); Saint-Hermas (1855); Saint-Janvier-de-Blainville (1855); Sainte-Scholastique (1855); Saint-Canut (1857); Sainte-Monique (1872), and Saint-Janvier-de-la-Croix (1959). Initially called Ville de Sainte-Scholastique but renamed Mirabel in 1973, the city was planned to become a vast transportation and industrial hub for Eastern Canada, with Montréal–Mirabel International Airport at its centre.

Montréal–Mirabel International Airport, which opened in 1975, never became a major aviation hub and the industrial parks never materialized, and in 2004, the airport closed to all scheduled commercial passenger traffic. It continues to operate as a cargo airport and handles a few charter passenger flights.

In 2000, about 10 km² (3.9 sq mi) of Mirabel's territory was annexed by Lachute.

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Mirabel had a population of 61,108 living in 24,795 of its 25,514 total private dwellings, a change of 21% from its 2016 population of 50,513. With a land area of 484.09 km² (186.91 sq mi), it had a population density of 126.2/km² (326.9/sq mi) in 2021.

In 2021, Mirabel was 91.8% white/European, 6.5% visible minorities and 1.7% Indigenous. The largest visible minority groups were Black (1.9%), Arab (1.6%), and Latin American (1.0%).