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As of June 28, 2004, there were 308 ridings across Canada. Each riding elects a member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons. Each province and territory is also divided into ridings that elect members to their legislature. Ontario uses the federal ridings in its elections for the provincial legislature. Other provinces have completely different federal and provincial ridings.
The term riding is derived from the English local government term, which was widely used in Canada in the 19th century. Most Canadian counties never had sufficient population to justify administrative sub-divisions. Nonetheless, it was common, especially in Ontario to divide counties with sufficient population to multiple electoral divisions, which thus became known as "ridings" in official documents. As the urban population grew, rural constituencies became geographically larger through the 20th century and generally encompassed one or more counties each. The word "riding" was then used to refer to any electoral division. A political party's local association is therefore generally known as a riding association.
See also: list of Canadian federal electoral districts, past Canadian electoral districts