Rouge National Urban Park – Parks Canada Agency

Parks Canada is a federal government agency responsible for the protection and preservation of Canada’s outstanding natural and cultural resources through a system of national parks, national marine conservation areas and national historic sites in all regions of Canada.

A rich assembly of natural, cultural and agricultural landscapes, Rouge National Urban Park is home to amazing biodiversity, some of the last remaining working farms in the Greater Toronto Area, Carolinian ecosystems, Toronto’s only campground, amazing hiking opportunities, and human history dating back over 10,000 years, including some of Canada’s oldest known Indigenous sites.

Rouge National Urban Park is one of the largest and best protected urban parks of its kind in the world, spanning 79.1 square kilometres in the heart of Canada’s largest and most diverse metropolitan area, overlapping the cities of Toronto, Markham and Pickering and the townships of Uxbridge and Whitchurch-Stouffville.

Rouge National Urban Park is a new type of protected area in the Parks Canada family – a national urban park. While it shares many of the characteristics of other protected areas, the park has been specifically created because of its urban setting and its mix of natural, cultural and agricultural resources and landscapes. Approximately 20 percent of the Canadian population lives within a one hour’s drive from the park.