The City of Kitchener, in southwestern Ontario, has a population of 190,399 (as of 2001 census). It is located in Waterloo Regional Municipality and is adjacent to the smaller City of Waterloo. Kitchener and Waterloo are often referred to jointly as the Twin Cities or K-W (Kitchener-Waterloo), although they have separate municipal governments.
The City of Kitchener began in 1807. The Mennonite bishop Benjamin Eby led members from his community in Pennsylvania to settle in Ontario. The hamlet that was established at that time was known as Ebytown. In 1833 the Township of Waterloo was created. Ebytown was incorporated as a village and later renamed Berlin in honour of the majority German heritage immigrants. In 1853 Berlin would become the County Seat of the newly created County of Waterloo. On June 9, 1912, Berlin officially became a City and was considered to be Canada's German Capital. During World War I, the Berlin City Council, under nationalist pressure and in response to anti-German sentiment, held a referendum to choose a new name (see Berlin to Kitchener name change). As a result, in 1916 the City was renamed in honour of recently deceased British general Lord Kitchener, to demonstrate the loyalty to the British Empire of the city's ethnic German population. Today the city maintains elements of its German heritage. Although beerbrewing is no longer a local industry of note, it does play host to the largest Oktoberfest celebration outside Germany. 7,310 residents (3.8%) listed German as their mother tongue in the 2001 census.
Whereas Waterloo has benefitted from the presence of two universities and a number of high tech companies, Kitchener has been a more blue-collar town. The auto-parts manufacturer Budd Canada continues to employ over 1000 workers and makes a substantial profit. The Huron Business Park is also the site of a number of industries, from seat manufacturers to furniture components. A number of the old industrial companies of Kitchener have fallen on harder times -- the Kaufmann shoe manufacturer has closed its factory, J.M. Schneider (a meat producer) has been bought out and operations scaled back, and companies like Krug Furniture and Electrohome (an electronics producer) have outsourced most of their production overseas. Still, occupations unique to manufacturing, processing and utilities cover as much as 15% of the local workforce Regional Municipality of Waterloo. The current mayor of Kitchener is Carl Zehr. He was reelected handily to his third term in November 2003 Conestoga College, one of the foremost non-university educational institutions in the province.
Negotiations are ongoing to bring the Faculty of Social Work from Wilfrid Laurier University to the site of the former St. Jerome's High School in downtown Kitchener; the University of Waterloo is also considering opening a School of Pharmacy in the downtown area.
