London - on the Canadian River Thames - is the center for Ontario's prosperous agricultural and industrial south-west, the seat of a Catholic and an Anglican Bishop, and the cultural focus, with its university, symphony orchestra, theatre and museums, for a large area.
The city was founded in 1792 by John Graves Simcoe who
named it after London, England. This was because Niagara-on-the-Lake, the provincial capital at that time, was right on the American frontier and he wanted his London - as in London, the capital of England, and also as a city deeper into Canada - to become the province's new capital.