Neither north or south
 

Are there any parts of Ontario that are neither northern or southern?

Central Ontario, such as Orillia.
Eastern Ontario, such as Ottawa. :D

Muskoka and Perry Sound are stuck in limbo, neither side wants them. They're more connected to Southern Ontario though. No one in Muskoka is going to Sudbury to go shopping.

I once got into an argument on Wikipedia with someone from the UK over whether Thunder Bay was located in Northwestern Ontario or Southwestern Ontario.

I've never thought of Eastern Ontario as not being part of Southern Ontario.

To me there aren't.

I do know that many Cree people who live in the far North on the coast see places such as Thunder Bay or Timmins as being "Southern".

To me, the Bruce Peninsula seems stuck between North and south, even though it's supposedly in Southwestern Ontario. It mostly looks northern compared to most of the rest of Southwestern Ontario, especially along the shoreline of Georgian Bay, but the inland parts look more like the south, with flatter topography and lots of farming!

True. The cliffs and rocky shore line makes you think somewhere more rugged like "up north". But the entire drive there up to Tobermory is nothing but typical SW Ontario farm land.

Maybe Muskoka, Parry Sound, Haliburton, Algonquin Park and Renfrew could be seen as a transition zone or the "near north"?

Manitoulin Island also seems to be stuck between North and south, even though it's considered to be in Northern Ontario. It's very much like the Bruce Peninsula that way.
Even North Bay seems like a blend of North and south!

I have a friend with family in Ottawa who cringes every time I refer to it as being in Southern Ontario.

"Don't lump us with Toronto!!" He must have said lol. :haha:

Haha I don't think it was that, but people's geographic psychology is definitely interesting in that way. I know people in BC who consider Manitoba as being the east, which seems to me objectively incorrect. But the funnier thing is it bugs me when people say that! Our attachment to places and the labels we give them are strange.

I cringed at the time, but I have heard a few people who seemed to think that "Northern Ontario" meant anything north of the 400/11 interchange at Barrie, and even one or two people who deemed it to be anything north of Steeles Avenue. And Neil Young's "town in North Ontario", where all his changes were, is...Omemee. Er, no, not the north.

To answer the question, though: the Muskoka and Parry Sound Districts are kind of a "transitional" zone, that may be considered either "Southern" or "Northern" by different sources in different contexts. The provincial government treats Parry Sound, but not Muskoka, as Northern Ontario for the purposes of the Ministry of Northern Development and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund; the federal government treats both Parry Sound and Muskoka as Northern Ontario under FEDNOR. And in terms of people's mental geography you may see Haliburton and even parts of Renfrew called "Northern" Ontario too, though no government agency at either level treats them as such officially.

And yeah, you'll see a lot of arguments about whether Eastern Ontario is part of Southern Ontario or not -- geographically it is, but culturally it's quite distinct from Central Ontario/GTA, so you'll get a very different answer on that question from a resident of Ottawa than you would from a resident of Sudbury.

Wow this is as Toronto-centered as one can get...

Good read.

It's funny, I was actually just having this conversation with someone because we recently bought a cottage just outside of Haliburton and I was trying to think where it would be classified. I genuinely didn't know hah.

Well as a resident of Ottawa, I can say we are definitely a part of Southern Ontario. If Montreal is part of Southern Quebec and Ottawa is slightly south of Montreal, then...I think you catch my drift. But that’s not the only reason why of course.

Yes Eastern Ontario is somewhat culturally distinct from other parts of Southern Ontario (e.g. Ottawa has a real winter every year, 1/3 of our metropolitan region is in Quebec, we work in both provinces, illegally smuggle alcohol all the time across provincial boundaries LOL, etc.), but also similar to the GTA or other large S. ONT cities (e.g. multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, business and family ties to the GTA as evidenced by the dozens of planes/trains/buses each day, etc.). Our main similarity to Northeastern Ontario is in terms of accounting for over 1/4 of all Franco-Ontarians, but that’s about it. You have to go to at least Cobden in the mid-Ottawa Valley/Renfrew County before it starts to feel/look more like Northern Ontario.

Renfrew County's always a wild one to me lol. The part south of Petawawa definitely feels like Eastern Ontario, but once you're past Deep River (starting at Rolphton), because of the Laurentian Mountains, it feels a lot like Northern Ontario instead. Maybe that's just Upper Ottawa Valley. :P

For counties like Hastings, Lennox & Addington, I'd have no problem putting them in the Easter-Ontario category. For City of Kawartha Lakes, it's definitely central Ontario. But Haliburton? Central or Eastern?

It is not cut and dried but if forced into a hard choice between yay or nay I would definitely place Ottawa in southern Ontario.

Even a place like Cornwall in far Eastern Ontario, notwithstanding the French element, has a lot of similarities to some of the not so charming cities of similar size more to the south of the province.