View of Saint John's Harbour from Signal Hill, Newfoundland, Canada


St. John's is the capital and largest city in Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the oldest English-founded city in North America. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. With a population of 200,600 as of 2012. Its name has been attributed to the feast day of John the Baptist, when John Cabot was believed to have sailed into the harbor in 1497, and also to a Basque fishing town with the same name. Newfoundland was claimed as an English colony in the name of Elizabeth I in 1583, temporarily captured by the Dutch in 1665, and attacked three times by the French who captured and destroyed its settlements in 1689 and 1707. St John's was retaken each time and re-fortified. British forces used St. John's fortifications during the Seven Years' War in North America, the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. St. John's served Allied needs in World War II by providing an air base for the US Army Air Corps and a harbor for antisubmarine warfare ships. St. John's, and the province as a whole, was gravely affected in the 1990s by the collapse of the Northern cod fishery, which had been the driving force of the provincial economy for hundreds of years.


Size: 4728px × 3151px
Location: St John's Harbour, Newfoundland, Canada
Photo credit: © Perla Copernik / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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