History of Toronto
In 1998, the six municipalities comprising Metropolitan Toronto – East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York, and the old City of Toronto – and its regional government were amalgamated into a single City of Toronto (colloquially dubbed the "megacity") by an act of the Government of Ontario. This was despite a municipal referendum in 1997 that was overwhelmingly against amalgamation. Subsequently, Mel Lastman defeated Barbara Hall to become the first elected mayor of the megacity.
Greater Toronto Area
The term "Greater Toronto" was first used in writing as early as the 1900s, although at the time, the term only referred to the old City of Toronto and its immediate townships and villages, which became Metropolitan Toronto in 1954 and became the current city of Toronto in 1998. The use of the term involving the four regional municipalities came into formal use in the mid-1980s, after it was used in a widely discussed report on municipal governance restructuring in the region and was later made official as a provincial planning area. However, it did not come into everyday usage until the mid- to late 1990s.