The strength and vitality of the many communities that make up Toronto, Ontario, Canada has earned the city its unofficial nickname of "the city of neighbourhoods." There are 140 neighbourhoods officially recognized by the City of Toronto and upwards of 240 official and unofficial neighbourhoods within the city's boundaries. Before 1998, Toronto was a much smaller municipality and formed part of Metropolitan Toronto. When the city amalgamated that year, Toronto grew to encompass the former municipalities of York, East York, North York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough. Each of these former municipalities still maintains, to a certain degree, its own distinct identity, and the names of these municipalities are still used by their residents, sometimes for disambiguation purposes. The area known as Toronto before the amalgamation is sometimes called the "old" City of Toronto, "Toronto proper", the Central District or simply "Downtown".