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While there can only be one Halton Region in Canada, you may be surprised to hear just how many other places in Canada, and indeed around the world, that also bear the names of either Halton, Oakville, Burlington, or Milton. So here is a small sampling of places that also bear the names of Halton’s four component municipalities.

Burlington, Vermont, USA

Probably the most well known Burlington outside of Canada, the most prominent fact about the state of Vermont’s most populous city is that it is home to a certain Larry David doppelganger who once served as mayor and then went on to become a United States Senator who almost defeated Hillary Clinton once while running to be president of the United States.

But besides Bernie Sanders, Burlington Vermont is also known for other interesting things as well. In 2015, it became the first American city to run completely on renewable energy. The famous ice cream chain Ben and Jerry’s opened their first scoop shop at a gas station in Burlington in 1978, and the city was the filming location for the movies Me, Myself and Irene and What Lies Beneath.

One more thing: Burlington Vermont and Burlington in Ontario are indeed sister cities. It would be rather strange if they weren’t.

Oakville, Manitoba

Photo from Manitoba Grain Elevators

I met someone over the weekend at a conference workshop who said he was from a small town out west called Oakville, Manitoba. At first I thought I had misheard him, but no there actually is an Oakville outside of Halton Region.

In reality, Oakville, Manitoba is an unincorporated rural district within the Rural Municipality of Portage la Prairie, not to be confused with the small Manitoba city of the same name. Oakville is approximately 35 km west of Winnipeg.

A small farming community seems a far cry from what Oakville, Ontario is today.

Milton (Brisbane), Queensland, Australia

The Milton in Australia is an inner suburb of the city of Brisbane. The suburb is a mixture of light industry, warehouses, commercial offices, retail and single and multiple occupancy residences, as the above YouTube video demonstrates.

The area is also very young in terms of demographics. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the median age in Milton is 29, which is nine years below the Australian average. And while the majority (71 per cent) language commonly spoken at home is English, the second most spoken language at home, at 4.6 per cent, is Mandarin Chinese.

The Milton in Brisbane does share one thing in common with the Milton in Ontario, in that both communities were named after the English poet John Milton.

Georgetown (various)

There are actually a number of places around the world named Georgetown. But here are a few notable examples:

Georgetown, Alberta: a ghost town just outside of Banff that was a former mining community.

Georgetown, Guyana: the capital of this South American country. It is situated on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Demerara River and it was nicknamed ‘Garden City of the Caribbean.

George Town, Cayman Islands: situated on the Grand Cayman, it serves as the capital of the Cayman Islands in the British West Indies. George Town is the heart of the Cayman Islands financial services industry (there are close to 600 Bank and Trust companies in the Cayman Islands), so it definitely lives up to the reputation as a offshore tax haven.

Acton (various)

There are also a number of places around the world named Acton, but here are a few notable examples:

Acton Regional County Municipality: this small community in the Eastern Townships of Quebec is the equivalent of a regional government in the province. The largest community and the seat of the county is a town also named Acton, called Acton Vale.

Acton (Canberra), Australia: this is a suburb of the capital of Australia. As of the 2016 census the population was just over 2,000 people, mostly students living at the Australian National University. The suburb is named in recognition of one of the region’s original homesteads ‘Acton’ which was sited near the present-day National Museum.

Halton, United Kingdom

There really is only one Halton in Canada, and the name is derived from several places in the United Kingdom. There are approximately eleven places in Britain that bear the name Halton.

There are many other places named after the communities in Halton. A full list can be viewed below:

Oakville, Burlington, and Milton