Trois-Rivières City Map Poster

About Trois-Rivières

The city is named after the Saint-Maurice River, which has three mouths at the Saint Lawrence River. The first mouth is called "L'Anse du Fort", or "Fort Bay". The second mouth was known as "L'Anse au Foulon" because it was full of rocks and difficult to navigate. Finally, there was a large island in between these two mouths that used to be called by many names: Île de la Tortue (Turtle Island), Île aux Coudres (Cedar Island) or Grand-Îsle (Big Island). This last name came from early French settlers who saw an abundance of trees and thought they looked like cedars ("cedar" in English). In 1634 when Trois-Rivières was founded, this island became known as L'Islet à l’Anglais ("Englishman's Islet").