5/14/24, 1:42 PM Canada | History, Population, Immigration, Capital, & Currency | Britannica

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Written by Norman L. Nicholson , Ralph R. Krueger ,

Roger D. Hall See All
Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: May 14, 2024 • Article History

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flag of Canada

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Head Of Government: Prime

Minister: Justin Trudeau

Capital: Ottawa

Population: (2024 est.) 42,069,000

Currency Exchange Rate: 1 USD

equals 1.355 Canadian dollar

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Head Of State: King of Canada

(British Monarch): Charles III,
represented by Governor-General:…
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Canada

Canada, the second largest country in

the world in area (after Russia),
occupying roughly the northern two-
fifths of the continent of North
America.

Despite Canada’s great size, it is one of

the world’s most sparsely populated
countries. This fact, coupled with the
grandeur of the landscape, has been
central to the sense of Canadian
national identity, as expressed by the

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Dublin-born writer Anna Brownell

Jameson, who explored central
Ontario in 1837 and remarked
exultantly on “the seemingly
interminable line of trees before you;
the boundless wilderness around you;
the mysterious depths amid the
multitudinous foliage, where foot of
man hath never penetrated…the
solitude in which we proceeded mile
after mile, no human being, no human
dwelling within sight.” Although
Canadians are comparatively few in
number, they have crafted what many
observers consider to be a model
multicultural society, welcoming
immigrant populations from every
other continent. In addition, Canada
harbours and exports a wealth of
natural resources and intellectual
capital equaled by few other countries.

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Canada

Canada is officially bilingual in English

and French, reflecting the country’s
history as ground once contested by
two of Europe’s great powers. The
word Canada is derived from the
Huron-Iroquois kanata, meaning a
village or settlement. In the 16th
century, French explorer Jacques
Cartier used the name Canada to refer
to the area around the settlement that
is now Quebec city. Later, Canada was
used as a synonym for New France,
which, from 1534 to 1763, included all
the French possessions along the St.
Lawrence River and the Great Lakes.
After the British conquest of New
France, the name Quebec was
sometimes used instead of Canada.
The name Canada was fully restored
after 1791, when Britain divided old
Quebec into the provinces of Upper

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and Lower Canada (renamed in 1841

Canada West and Canada East,
respectively, and collectively called
Canada). In 1867 the British North
America Act created a confederation
from three colonies (Nova Scotia, New
Brunswick, and Canada) called the
Dominion of Canada. The act also
divided the old colony of Canada into
the separate provinces of Ontario and
Quebec. Dominion status allowed
Canada a large measure of self-rule,
but matters pertaining to international
diplomacy and military alliances were
reserved to the British crown. Canada
became entirely self-governing within
the British Empire in 1931, though full
legislative independence was not
achieved until 1982, when Canada
obtained the right to amend its own
constitution.

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Moraine Lake in Banff National

Park
Moraine Lake at dawn, Banff National
Park, southwestern Alberta, Canada.

Canada shares a 5,525-mile- (8,890-

km-) long border with the United
States (including Alaska)—the longest
border in the world not patrolled by
military forces—and the overwhelming
majority of its population lives within
185 miles (300 km) of the
international boundary. Although
Canada shares many similarities with
its southern neighbour—and, indeed,
its popular culture and that of the
United States are in many regards
indistinguishable—the differences
between the two countries, both
temperamental and material, are
profound. “The central fact of
Canadian history,” observed the 20th-
century literary critic Northrop Frye, is
“the rejection of the American
Revolution.” Contemporary Canadians
are inclined to favour orderly central
government and a sense of community
over individualism; in international
affairs, they are more likely to serve
the role of peacemaker instead of
warrior, and, whether at home or
abroad, they are likely to have a
pluralistic way of viewing the world.
More than that, Canadians live in a
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society that in most legal and official

matters resembles Britain—at least in
the English-speaking portion of the
country. Quebec, in particular, exhibits
French adaptations: more than three-
fourths of its population speaks French
as their primary language. The French
character in Quebec is also reflected in
differences in religion, architecture,
and schooling. Elsewhere in Canada,
French influence is less apparent,
confined largely to the dual use of
French and English for place names,
product labels, and road signs. The
French and British influences are
supplemented by the cultures of the
country’s Native American peoples (in
Canada often collectively called the
First Nations) and Inuit peoples, the
former being far greater in number
and the latter enjoying
semiautonomous status in Canada’s
newest territory, Nunavut. In addition,
the growing number of immigrants
from other European countries,
Southeast Asia, and Latin America has
made Canada even more broadly
multicultural.

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Britannica Quiz

Countries & Their Features

Canada has been an influential

member of the Commonwealth and
has played a leading role in the
organization of French-speaking
countries known as La Francophonie.
It was a founding member of the
United Nations and has been active in
a number of major UN agencies and
other worldwide operations. In 1989
Canada joined the Organization of
American States and signed a free
trade agreement with the United
States, a pact that was superseded in
1992 by the North American Free
Trade Agreement (which also includes
Mexico). A founding member (1961) of
the Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development, Canada is
also a member of the Group of Seven
(G7), which includes the world’s seven
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largest industrial democracies and, as

the Group of Eight (G8), had included
Russia until it was indefinitely
suspended from membership in 2014.

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Ottawa: Parliament
Buildings
Parliament Buildings, Ottawa.

The national capital is Ottawa,

Canada’s fourth largest city. It lies
some 250 miles (400 km) northeast of
Toronto and 125 miles (200 km) west
of Montreal, respectively Canada’s first
and second cities in terms of
population and economic, cultural,
and educational importance. The third
largest city is Vancouver, a centre for
trade with the Pacific Rim countries
and the principal western gateway to
Canada’s developing interior. Other
major metropolitan areas include
Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta;
Quebec city, Quebec; and Winnipeg,
Manitoba.

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Land of Canada
Canada’s total land area includes
thousands of adjacent islands, notably
Newfoundland in the east and those of
the Arctic Archipelago in the north.
Canada is bounded by the Arctic Ocean
to the north, Greenland (a self-
governing part of the Danish kingdom)
to the northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to
the east, 12 states of the United States
to the south, and the Pacific Ocean and
the U.S. state of Alaska to the west; in
addition, tiny Saint-Pierre and
Miquelon (an archipelagic territory of
France) lies off Newfoundland.

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In longitude Canada extends from

approximately 52° to 141° W, a
distance that spans six time zones. In
latitude it extends from approximately
42° to 83° N. With its vast Arctic and
subarctic territories, Canada is often
considered a country only of the far
north; however, the peninsula of
southern Ontario juts deeply south
into the heartland of the United States,
and its southernmost point, Middle
Island in Lake Erie, is at the same
latitude as northern California. Canada
occupies a strategic global location,
lying on great circle routes (the
shortest line joining any two places on
the globe) between the United States
and Europe and, to a lesser degree,
Asia. As a result, many international
commercial flights track across
Canada.

The combination of physical

geography and discontinuous
settlement has led to a strong sense of
regionalism in Canada, and popular
regional terms often overlap. The
Atlantic Provinces include all of the
Appalachian region except the Quebec
portion. If the province of
Newfoundland and Labrador is
excluded, the three remaining east-

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coast provinces are called the

Maritime Provinces or the Maritimes.
Quebec and Ontario are usually
referred to separately but sometimes
together, as Central Canada. The West
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usually means all four provinces west
of Ontario, but British Columbia may
be referred to alone and the other
three collectively as the Prairie
Provinces or the Prairies. Yukon, the
Northwest Territories, and Nunavut
are referred to as the North.

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