Orléans, Île d'

Island in the St Lawrence River, southern Québec, Canada, northeast of Québec City; area 190 sq km/73 sq mi; population (1991) 6,900. About 8 km/5 mi wide and 34 km/21 mi long, it is the largest island in the river between Montréal to the southwest and L'Île d'Anticosti to the northeast. The island contains five parishes and one village. Although it once had shipyards, Île d'Orléans has always been primarily agricultural, specializing in berries and maple syrup. Tourism is important to its economy.

In 1535 the French navigator Jacques Cartier named the island L'Île de Bacchus, because it was covered with wild grapevines. Settled in the 1650s, it flourished, despite a massacre by the Iroquois in 1656, with the ribbon farm cultivation typical of the Seigneurie. The tenant farms of the seigneurs (landowners) were laid out in narrow strips, each having a portion of river frontage.