Hamilton is a city in southeastern Ontario, Canada. It is located at the western end of Lake Ontario, on the southern shore of the closed Hamilton Harbour in Burlington Bay. The site of the present city was discovered by the French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle in 1669. Settler settlement began in 1778 with the arrival of Loyalists from the thirteen American rebel colonies. The town owes its name to George Hamilton, who founded the original village in 1815 on rolling plains between the waterfront (to the north) and the Niagara Escarpment (to the south), where a peak known locally as "The Mountain" rises abruptly to 75 metres above sea level. Hamilton was initially eclipsed by the nearby city of Dundas, but the opening of the Burlington Canal (1830), linking Hamilton Harbour to Lake Ontario, led to the rapid growth of the city into a major port and railway centre. The village of Hamilton thus became a commercial town in 1833, before obtaining its charter of privileges in 1846. In 2001, several neighbouring municipalities, which since 1974 had been part of the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth, were integrated into Hamilton, resulting in a considerable increase in the city's area (1,117 square kilometres) and population. The latter thus has 504 559 inhabitants and its agglomeration 647 634 (2006). Hamilton is now one of Canada's major industrial centres. Its steel industry, which began in the 1850s, is the largest in Canada and produces most of the country's steel (Stelco, acquired in 2007 by U.S. Steel, and Dafasco). Other industries include railway equipment, clothing, appliances, turbines, motor vehicle parts, cables, nails and confectionery. Hamilton is also an important financial centre.