Saguenay

Saguenay is a city in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada, on the Saguenay River, about 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Quebec City by land route. It is located about 126 kilometres (78 miles) upstream and northwest of Tadoussac, located at the confluence with the St. Lawrence River. It was formed in 2002 by merging the cities of Chicoutimi and Jonquière and the city of La Baie. Chicoutimi was founded by the French in 1676.

The city of Saguenay constitutes a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE); its geographic code is 941. Together with the regional municipality of the county of Le Fjord-du-Saguenay, it forms the census division (CD) of Le Saguenay-et-son-Fjord. The mayor of Saguenay is Josée Néron. Before its use as the name of the city, the term "Saguenay" or (less commonly) "Valley of Saguenay" had already been used for the entire Saguenay River region (see Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean). Saguenay is the seat of the judicial district of Chicoutimi.

The city is divided into three districts: Chicoutimi (which includes the ancient city of Chicoutimi, as well as Laterrière and Tremblay), Jonquière (which includes the ancient town of Jonquière, Lac-Kénogami and Shipshaw) and La Baie (corresponding to the ancient city of La Baie).

According to the Köppen classification system, Saguenay has a humid continental climate with a large variation between summer and winter. The city has two short transition seasons (spring and autumn), while summers are hot and occasionally hot, and winters are long and very cold. Temperatures drop to below -20 ° C (-4 ° F) on average 47 times a year and to less than -30 ° C (-22 ° F) 7 times a year. The low winter temperatures characteristic of Saguenay are caused by a combination of factors, such as the cold waters of the Labrador Current and the Hudson Bay to the north and east of the city.

The economy of Saguenay is in transition. It is increasingly based on the development of research and teaching in applied technologies for energy, aluminum, boreal forest, genomics and biomedical sciences.

Saguenay has three large industrial parks with a total of 8,496,138 square meters (91,451,670 square feet) of commercial facilities: five urban centres, six shopping centres, power centres and five main commercial arteries.