Guelph has a population of 131,794)^[2][4] is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly 28 kilometres (17 mi) east of Kitchener and 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wellington County Road 124. It is the seat of Wellington County, but is politically independent of it.

The current Guelph began as a settlement in the 1820s, started by John Galt, originally from Scotland, the first Superintendent of the Canada Company. He based the headquarters, and his home, in the community. The area – much of what became Wellington County – had previously been part of the Halton Block, a Crown Reserve for the Six Nations Iroquois.^[5][6] Galt would later be considered as the founder of Guelph.

Because of its low crime rates, clean environment and generally high standard of living, Guelph is consistently rated as one of Canada's best places to live.^[7][8] Guelph has been noted as having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country throughout the Great Recession.^[9] In February 2016, it had the lowest rate in the country, at 3.9 per cent, compared to the national rate of 7.3 per cent; in large part, this is because of the great number of manufacturing facilities, including Linamar.^[10]The unemployment rate increased over the subsequent months, however, reaching 5.9% by October 2017.^[11]