It lies within the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor along Ontario Highway 401, is a major port of entry from the United States into Canada, and is positioned to support some of Cornwall's largest industries, which include logistics, distribution, and call centres.

The construction of the Cornwall Canal between 1834 and 1842 accelerated the community's development into a regional and industrial economic "capital" for a growing hinterland of towns and villages.

[15] The network of villages and towns surrounding Cornwall helped make the city a local entrepot for business, commerce, media and services.

The different groups mixed and integrated over time, with family names and histories reflecting a blending of different backgrounds that became typical of Eastern Ontario.

[18][19] Smaller but impressive contributions in the region were made by a host of other migrants, from Jewish traders, craftsmen, and merchants to Eastern European refugees and even a significant body of former slaves.

Cornwall and the surrounding area, originally called "Royal Settlement #2" and then "New Jamestown," was initially a rough place and was largely left to its own devices.

Adding to the initial history of pragmatic entrepreneurialism, since very early with the founding of the city, provincial and federal governments have typically neglected the area and treated it as little more than a transit corridor.

[citation needed] "The original 516 settlers arrived in Royal Township #2 with minimal supplies and faced years of hard work and possible starvation.

Upon their departure from military camps in Montreal, Pointe Claire, Saint Anne, and Lachine in the fall of 1784, Loyalists were given a tent, one month's worth of food rations, clothes, and agricultural provisions by regiment commanders.

David Thompson, the Welsh-Canadian explorer who mapped the Far West and was called the greatest land geographer in history, drew many of his travelling companions from Cornwall's rural hinterland, with Scottish and native settlers, and he lived in Williamstown.

The mixing of different social classes and ethnic backgrounds was common even early in its history because of the interdependence demanded by isolation and the lack of support from or interference by official authorities.

Many people in the region have some Native ancestry as a result, and many communities sit on sites that have been occupied, farmed, or managed for hundreds of years.

For example, from the 1780s to the 1830s, a "bee" was a social event that pooled local labour resources for people to come together for collective projects or to help out individual families, and it was often a festive occasion.

[citation needed] The early "bees" presaged the development of a varied and integrated culture that ultimately drew on many different classes, backgrounds, and ethnic and linguistic groups, all of which were forced by the harsh reality of life in the region to work together for common goals, the primary of which was survival.

The "bees" and different forms of collective shared labour were extremely common all over Eastern Ontario, especially in the early villages of the St. Lawrence Valley.

These gatherings exhibited the lack of aristocracy in the rural loyalist settlement along the St. Lawrence River and residents' disregard for individuals' former social standing or lineage.

"[18] Cornwall does not enjoy a positive environmental reputation as a result of decades of industrial pollution in the city, the legacy of which is a riverfront contaminated by mercury, zinc, lead, and copper,[25] soil contaminated by coal tar and byproducts,[26] and most evidently, "Big Ben",[27] an 18-hectare (44-acre), 80-metre-tall (260 ft) dumpsite within the city filled with wood bark, paper mill sludge, demolition waste and asbestos.

It is then used as a ski hill.For years, the industrial emissions in the Cornwall area fuelled public health concerns about respiratory disease and cancer.

In 1995 Health Canada[28] reported the rate of hospitalization for asthma was approximately double that of Ontario industrial cities such as Hamilton, Sudbury and Windsor.

The shutdown of the Courtaulds rayon fiber operation (1992) and the Domtar paper mill (2006) has been a significant factor in the city's improved air quality.

[29] In 2007, a former city councillor, Naresh Bhargava, began working with the St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences on a project called the Community Carbon Reduction Initiative.

[citation needed] Earlier progress in energy conservation was made when in 1995, the first municipally owned hot water district heating and cogeneration system in Canada went into operation, providing about 4% of the city's daily electrical needs while at the same time heating a number of buildings, including a hospital site, schools, and a municipal library.

The city hosts the largest supply chain management distribution centre in Canada, Walmart, its massive 1,500,000-square-foot (140,000 m2) facility employing nearly 1,000 people.

[48] The Aultsville Theatre, named after one of the Lost Villages, is a 680-seat performing arts centre on the St. Lawrence College campus and funded in part by the City of Cornwall.

[52][53] The Cline House Gallery offers Cornwall and the surrounding area rotating exhibitions of visual art featuring the work of both local and visiting artists.

Acts included Glass Tiger, Theory of a Deadman, Marianas Trench, Our Lady Peace, Finger Eleven, Kim Mitchell, Sass Jordan, Tom Cochrane, Trooper, Burton Cummings, and David Wilcox.

Taking place over four days in late July, Ribfest attracts many for barbecue, beer tent, free live music and midway rides.

The Grand Trunk Railway (CN Rail) built an east-west line through Cornwall in 1856, and its original station dated to that year.

La Citadelle is part of the Roman Catholic separate, French language school board for the Southeastern region of Ontario (CSDCEO).

École secondaire publique l'Héritage is part of the public school board responsible for education in the French language in Eastern Ontario (CEPEO) and is home to grade 7 through 12 students.