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Ontario Highway 48

highway in Ontario

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ1588976 ↗
Source-derived summary

King's Highway 48, also known as Highway 48, is a provincially maintained highway in southern Ontario that extends from Major Mackenzie Drive in Markham, through Whitchurch-Stouffville and East Gwillimbury, to Highway 12 south-east of Beaverton. The route is generally rural and straight, passing near several communities within the Regional Municipality of York. The route is 65.2 kilometres (40.5 mi) long. Most part of the road has a speed limit of 80 km/h (50 mph), except within town limits, where the speed limit is reduced to 60 km/h (37 mph) or 50 km/h (31 mph).

Highway 48 was first designated in 1937 to connect Port Bolster with Highway 12 in Beaverton. It was extended south to meet with Highway 401 in the 1950s in anticipation of a planned freeway connection around the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe that ultimately became Highway 404. In the mid-1970s, Highway 48 assumed a portion of the route of Highway 46 in Victoria Country, now the city of Kawartha Lakes, extending the route to Highway 35 in Coboconk. Between then and 1998, the route was 128 km (80 mi). However, on January 1, 1998 the province transferred the responsibility of maintaining the southern and northern sections to the regional governments that those sections lie within.

Route description

Highway 48 is an L-shaped route, travelling north through York Region to the southern shores of Lake Simcoe before turning east towards Highway 12.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ontario Highway 48” is highway in Ontario. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ontario, Highway and highway, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1937, 1998—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1937-03-24. For this dossier, Ontario, Highway and highway is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “highway in Ontario” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1588976. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937 and 1998.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ontario Highway 48”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ontario Highway 48 primary sources, Ontario Highway 48 archive and Ontario research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ontario Highway 48” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.