Northern Ontario is a geographic and administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario. It covers the part of Ontario north of Lake Huron (including Georgian Bay), the French River, Lake Nipissing, and the Mattawa River. It includes almost 87 percent of the province but only six percent of the province's population lives in the area. Most of Northern Ontario is on the Canadian Shield.
The region has a land area of 802,000 square kilometers (310,000 square miles). The total population in 2011 was 732,914.
Sometimes the region is divided into Northeastern Ontario and Northwestern Ontario. Northwestern Ontario covers the three westernmost disctricts of the region: Rainy River, Kenora, and Thunder Bay. Northestern Ontario covers the other districts and has two-thirds of the regions population.