Discover Canada Guide
Canada's Regions
Discover Canada groups the country into five regions, so it helps to know both the list of regions and which province belongs to which one.
Key facts for the test
- •Five regions: Atlantic Provinces, Central Canada, Prairie Provinces, West Coast, Northern Territories
- •Ottawa has been the national capital since 1857
- •Canada is the second largest country in the world by area
The five regions
Discover Canada groups the country into five regions. The Atlantic Provinces are Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Central Canada is made up of Ontario and Quebec, home to most of the national population. The Prairie Provinces are Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The West Coast region is British Columbia. The Northern Territories are Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
Ottawa, the national capital
Ottawa sits on the Ottawa River in Ontario. Queen Victoria picked it as the capital in 1857, partly for its defensible location away from the border with the United States and its position between English-speaking Canada West and French-speaking Canada East.
Size and geography
Canada is the second largest country in the world by total area, after Russia, spanning six time zones from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic Ocean. This vast geography is part of why the guide organizes the country's identity by region rather than treating it as one uniform landscape.
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