Vaughan ( /ˈvɔːn/ VAWN; 2011 population 288,301) is a city in York Region north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996–2006, achieving a population growth rate of 80.2% according to Statistics Canada having nearly doubled in population since 1991. Vaughan is located in Southern Ontario and is part of the Greater Toronto Area.

In the late pre-contact period, the Huron-Wendat people populated what is today Vaughan. The Skandatut ancestral Huron village overlooked the east branch of the Humber River (Pinevalley Drive), and was once home to approximately 2000 Huron in the sixteenth century. The site is located close to a Huron ossuary (mass grave) uncovered in Kleinburg in 1970, and one kilometre north of the Seed-Barker Huron site

The first European to pass through Vaughan was the French explorer Étienne Brûlé, who traversed the Humber Trail in 1615. However, it was not until the townships were created in 1792 that Vaughan began to see any settlements, as it was considered to be extremely remote and the lack of roads through the region made travel difficult. The township was named after Benjamin Vaughan, a British commissioner who signed a peace treaty with the United States in 1783.

Ivan Vaughan (18 June 1942 - 16 August 1993) was a boyhood friend of John Lennon, and later schoolmate of Paul McCartney at the Liverpool Institute, both commencing school there in Sept. 1953. He was born on the same day as Paul McCartney in Liverpool. He played bass part-time in Lennon's first band, The Quarrymen, and was responsible for introducing Lennon to Paul McCartney at a community event (the Woolton village fête) on July 6, 1957, where The Quarrymen were performing. McCartney impressed Lennon, who invited McCartney to join the band, which he did a day later. This led to the formation of Lennon and McCartney's songwriting partnership, and later of The Beatles.

Vaughan studied classics at University College, London, married in 1966 and settled down to family life with a son and daughter, and became a teacher.

Lennon and McCartney never forgot the friend who brought them together. For a time they put Vaughan on the payroll of their Apple company, in charge of a plan that never took off to set up a school with a Sixties, hippie-style education ethos. Vaughan's wife Jan, a languages teacher, was hired to sit down with Lennon and McCartney and help with the French lyrics to the 1965 song "Michelle".