Fontinahas, Gravenhurst

Fontinahas (Traditional Chinese: 坊間煙霞 ''(lit. the haze of the market); Portuguese: Fontaínhas''; February 2011 population 2,730), formerly named Fontahinas or Fontahinas-Finland, is a town of the Regional Municipality of Gravenhurst in the Imaginary Lands of Nicholas.

Prior to the establishment of the Alphabet Belt, the locale is under Alphabet County as a part of the Unorganized Territory of Spooting. (Traditional Chinese: 士砵亭, lit. the Outpost of Spoot, named after of a famous general in the 1700s). Currently, Spooting exists as a community within the Town of Fontinahas.

The Special Economic Region is renowned for a large number of native Portuguese population, though recent new immigrants puts Portuguese as one of the smaller groups of the demographic profile. The town also features a significant French-speaking population, and in fact, some districts inhabited by mostly French-speaking residents are named in French, such as Plein d'Amour and Trois-Rivières. The government of Gravenhurst has enlisted the town as a member of the French Cultural Hub.

There are currently no public transit service in the town. The GO Transit Golden Corridor Line runs north of the town. There are plans of opening the Fontinahas GO Station with either Mapleview Transit or Gravenhurst Regional Transit to operate connecting bus routes.

The area of the town is 113.6 km².

History
Originally established in 1735, it was created as the sixth parish of the former Alphabet County, about two years after its predecessor Eugene - Euridice. Like other parishes in the county, it was originally named in two components, Fontahinas-Finland.

In the 1900s, the "émigré" movement occurred, and most of Fontinahas' population moved out to urban areas. The remaining population was all elders, and was left on their own, and eventually, without any incoming residents, the parish wilted away. The last inhabitant of the township died in 1932.

The township became a ghost town, like many other parishes in the county. Most of the old town has been reclaimed by nature, only a few buildings are now recovered.

After the merge of Alphabet County into Gravenhurst Region, in 2000, the Gravenhurst Region government attempted to revive some of the abandoned parishes in the Alphabet Belt, and the Reviving Alphabet Belt Project was launched. The originally Fontahinas-Finland was renamed as "Fontinahas", and was designated as a special economic region (SER), which encouraged businesses to invest in the abandoned township at a very low tax rate with government subsidy, as well as providing housing districts for people who struggle to own a home in the major urban areas.

Under this project, the population of the abandoned parish revived, and in an eleven years period, it became a functional town with a population of 2,700 and commercial activities.

In a press conference in August 2012, the Regional government announced that the project has reached its goals in Fontinahas, and will be discontinued on 1 September 2012. Fontinahas will be redesignated as a town, and will become the second largest municipality in the Caledonia Census Agglomeration.

Communities in Fontinahas

 * Chinatown Fontinahas
 * Fontinahas Central
 * Fontinahas Waterfront Shopping and Habitable District
 * Plein d'Amour Housing District
 * Schoolhouse Plains
 * Silo
 * Spooting
 * Trois Rivières (Three Rivers)

Sister Cities

 * Chihoshi Town, Cosmoplay