Stratford is a city on the Avon River in Perth County in southwestern Ontario, Canada, with a population of 30,886 as of 2011.

When the area was first settled by Europeans in 1832, the townsite and the river were named after Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is the seat of Perth County. Stratford was incorporated as a town in 1859 and as a city in 1886. The first mayor was John Corry Wilson Daly and the current mayor is Dan Mathieson. The swan has become a symbol of the city. Each year twenty-four white swans are released into the Avon River. The town is well known for being the home of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

The town was originally a railway junction. Furniture manufacturing became an important part of the local economy by the twentieth century. In 1933 a general strike, started by the furniture workers and led by the Communist Workers' Unity League, marked the last time the army was deployed to break a strike in Canada.

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival began in 1953 when, on July 13, actor Alec Guinness spoke the first lines of the first play produced by the festival.

The annual festival now draws thousands of theatre goers and tourists to the area each year. Acclaimed performers including Alec Guinness, Christopher Plummer, Dame Maggie Smith, William Hutt and William Shatner have performed at the festival. The Canadian novelist and playwright Timothy Findley performed in the first season, and had an ongoing relationship with the festival, eventually moving to Stratford in 1997.

The world-renowned festival takes place in four theatres throughout the city: the Festival Theatre, the Avon Theatre, Tom Patterson Theatre and the Studio Theatre.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratford,_Ontario