Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire "New England" region. The city proper had a 2009 estimated population of 645,169, making it the twentieth largest in the country. It is also the anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area called  "Greater Boston", home to 4.5 million people and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the country. Greater Boston as a commuting region includes six Massachusetts counties:  "Essex", "Middlesex","Norfolk", "Suffolk", "Plymouth", "Worcester", northern "Bristol" County, all of "Rhode Island" and parts of "New Hampshire"; it is home to 7.6 million people, making it the fifth-largest Combined Statistical Area in the United States.

Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec and the second-largest city in Canada. Originally called Ville-Marie, or City of Mary, the city takes its present name from Mont Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the city is located, or Mont Real as it was spelled in Middle French, Mont Royal in present french.