Canada’s Regions

Ten provinces, three territories, five regions and every capital city.

The country

Canada is the second largest country on earth — 10 million square kilometres.
Three oceans border Canada: the Pacific in the west, the Atlantic in the east and the Arctic to the north.
There are five distinct regions: the Atlantic Provinces, Central Canada, the Prairie Provinces, the West Coast and the Northern Territories.
Queen Victoria settled on the town beside the Ottawa River as the capital in 1857.
Canada has ten provinces and three territories.

Newfoundland and Labrador — capital St. John’s. The most easterly point in North America, with its own time zone; the oldest colony of the British Empire.
Prince Edward Island — capital Charlottetown. The smallest province, birthplace of Confederation, known for potatoes, red soil and the Confederation Bridge. Setting of Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Nova Scotia — capital Halifax. The most populous Atlantic province; the Bay of Fundy has the world’s highest tides. Halifax is Canada’s largest east coast port and home to the largest naval base.
New Brunswick — capital Fredericton. Founded by the United Empire Loyalists, the only officially bilingual province; about one-third live and work in French. Saint John is the largest city; Moncton is the principal Francophone Acadian centre.

Over half the population lives along the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence. Between them the two provinces turn out more than three-quarters of the country’s manufactured goods.
Quebec — capital Québec City. Nearly eight million people; more than three-quarters speak French as a first language. Canada’s largest producer of hydro-electricity and main producer of pulp and paper. Montreal is Canada’s second largest city and the second largest mainly French-speaking city in the world after Paris.
Ontario — capital Toronto. More than one-third of Canadians. Toronto is the largest city in Canada and its main financial centre. The Niagara region is known for vineyards and fruit. Ontario has the largest French-speaking population outside Quebec.
The five Great Lakes are Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan (in the U.S.A.) and Superior — the largest freshwater lake in the world.

Manitoba — capital Winnipeg. Agriculture, mining and hydro-electric power. Portage and Main is the most famous street intersection in Canada. St. Boniface has Western Canada’s largest Francophone community. The largest Aboriginal population of any province, over 15%.
Saskatchewan — capital Regina. Once the "breadbasket of the world"; 40% of Canada’s arable land; the world’s richest deposits of uranium and potash. Regina is home to the RCMP training academy; Saskatoon is the largest city.
Alberta — capital Edmonton. The most populous Prairie province, named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta. Five national parks including Banff, established in 1885. The largest producer of oil and gas; the Badlands hold rich dinosaur fossil deposits.

British Columbia — capital Victoria. Canada’s westernmost province, population four million.
The Port of Vancouver is Canada’s largest and busiest, the gateway to the Asia-Pacific.
About half of all goods produced in B.C. are forestry products — the most valuable forestry industry in Canada.
B.C. has the most extensive park system in Canada, about 600 provincial parks. Chinese and Punjabi are the most spoken languages in the cities after English.

The three territories hold one-third of Canada’s land mass but only about 100,000 people.
The North is called the "Land of the Midnight Sun". Much of it is tundra — treeless, with permanently frozen soil.
Yukon — capital Whitehorse. The Gold Rush of the 1890s, celebrated by the poet Robert W. Service. Holds the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada (-63°C). Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain, is in the Yukon.
Northwest Territories — capital Yellowknife, the "diamond capital of North America". More than half the population is Aboriginal. The Mackenzie River, 4,200 km, is the second-longest river system in North America.
Nunavut — capital Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay). Established in 1999 from the eastern N.W.T. "Nunavut" means "our land" in Inuktitut. About 85% Inuit; the 19-member Legislative Assembly chooses a premier and ministers by consensus.
The Canadian Rangers, part of the Canadian Forces Reserves, patrol the Arctic.