St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. The city spans 446.04 square kilometres (172.22 sq mi) and is the easternmost city in North America (excluding Greenland).
Its name has been attributed to the belief that John Cabot sailed into the harbour on the Nativity of John the Baptist in 1497, although it is most likely a legend that came with British settlement. A more realistic possibility is that a fishing village with the same name existed without a permanent settlement for most of the 16th century. Indicated as São João on a Portuguese map from 1519, it is one of the oldest cities in North America. It was officially incorporated as a city in 1888. With a metropolitan population of approximately 239,316 (as of 16 January 2025), the St. John's Metropolitan Area is Canada's 22nd-largest metropolitan area and the second-largest Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in Atlantic Canada, after Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The city has a rich history, having played a role in the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John's. Its history and culture have made it into an important tourist destination. St. John's was referred to as Baile Sheáin (Johnstown), in the poetry of Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara (1715–1810), and among speakers of the Irish language in Newfoundland.
St. John's was used by fishermen setting up seasonal camps in the early 1500s. Sebastian Cabot declared in a handwritten Latin text in his original 1545 map that St. John's earned its name when he and his father, the Venetian explorer John Cabot, in the service of England, became the first Europeans to sail into the harbour, on the morning of 24 June 1494 (per British and French historians, in 1497), the feast day of Saint John the Baptist. However, the locations of Cabot's landfalls are disputed. A series of expeditions to St. John's by Portuguese from the Azores took place in the early 16th century, and by 1540, French, Spanish and Portuguese ships crossed the Atlantic annually to fish the waters off the Avalon Peninsula. In the Basque Country, it is a common belief the name of St. John's was given by Basque fishermen because the bay of St. John's is very similar to the Bay of Pasaia in the Basque Country, where one of the fishing towns is called St. John (in Spanish, San Juan, and in Basque, Donibane).
The earliest record of the location appears as São João on a Portuguese map by Pedro Reinel in 1519. When the English mariner John Rut visited St. John's in 1527, he found Norman, Breton and Portuguese ships in the harbour. On 3 August 1527, Rut wrote a letter to King Henry VIII on the findings of his voyage to North America; this was the first known letter sent from North America. St. Jehan is shown on Nicolas Desliens's world map of 1541, and San Joham is found in João Freire's Atlas of 1546.
On 5 August 1583, an English Sea Dog, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, claimed the area as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. There was no permanent population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement.
Bernard Drake's Newfoundland Expedition in 1585 landed at Saint John's, re-establishing England's claim on the area. St. John's became a base for his operations, where his ships gathered supplies and fresh water. This expedition virtually wiped out the Spanish and Portuguese fishing industries in the area, and so set the stage for subsequent English and French influence in the region.
By 1620, the fishermen of England's West Country controlled most of Newfoundland's east coast. In 1627, William Payne, called St. John's "the principal prime and chief lot in all the whole country".
Sometime after 1630, the town of St. John's was established as a permanent community. Before this, English fishermen were expressly forbidden by the English government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, to establish permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast.
The population grew slowly in the 17th century: St. John's was Newfoundland's largest settlement when English naval officers began to take censuses around 1675. The population grew in the summers with the arrival of migratory fishermen. In 1680, fishing ships (mostly from South Devon) set up fishing rooms at St. John's, bringing hundreds of Irish men into the port to operate inshore fishing boats.
The town's first significant defences were likely erected due to commercial interests, following the temporary seizure of St. John's by the Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter in June 1665.
The inhabitants fended off a second Dutch attack in 1673, when it was defended by Christopher Martin, an English merchant captain. Martin landed six cannons from his vessel, Elias Andrews, and constructed an earthen breastwork and battery near Chain Rock commanding the Narrows leading into the harbour. With 23 men, Martin beat off an attack by three Dutch warships. The English government planned to expand these fortifications (Fort William) in around 1689, but construction did not begin until after the French admiral Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captured and destroyed the town in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign (1696). When 1500 English reinforcements arrived in late 1697, they found rubble where the town and fortifications had stood.
The French attacked St. John's again in 1705 (Siege of St. John's), and captured it in 1708 (Battle of St. John's), devastating civilian structures with fire on each instance.
The harbour remained fortified through most of the 18th and 19th centuries. The final battle of the Seven Years' War in North America (known as the French and Indian War in the US) was fought in 1762, in St. John's. Following a surprise capture of the town by the French early in the year, the British responded and, at the Battle of Signal Hill, the French surrendered St. John's to British forces under the command of Colonel William Amherst.
In the late 1700s, Fort Amherst and Fort Waldegrave were built to defend the harbour entrance.
The oldest European settlement in Anglophone North America controversy
There has been some controversy regarding which European settlement is the oldest in Anglophone North America. As mentioned above, while English fishermen had set up seasonal camps in St. John's in the 16th century, they were expressly forbidden by the English government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, to establish permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast. As a result, the town of St. John's was not established as a permanent community until after the 1630s. With respect to the oldest surviving permanent English settlements in North America, it was preceded by Jamestown, Virginia (1607), the Cuper's Cove colony at Cupids in Newfoundland (1610), St. George's, Bermuda (1612), and the Bristol's Hope colony at Harbour Grace in Newfoundland (1618). Each of these English settlements were far later than other European settlements in North America, such as St. Augustine, Florida established by Spain in 1565.
On 24 April 1800, the "United Irish Uprising" occurred when 19 Irish soldiers who were part of the British garrison stationed in Newfoundland mutinied. The mutineers, who were suspected to be members of the Society of United Irishmen, fled to the countryside after the mutiny failed, and were apprehended in a matter of weeks and court-martialled. Of the 17 mutineers captured, 8 were executed, 4 were let go while 5 were sentenced to penal transportation.