Canada's regions

Canada is the second largest country on earth, about 10 million square kilometres, and three oceans touch it: the Pacific on the west, the Atlantic on the east, the Arctic to the north. About 34 million people live in all of that space, according to the figure the guide gives.

They are not spread evenly. The five Great Lakes sit on the southern edge of the country: Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superior, and Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world. More than half of all Canadians live in the cities and towns near those lakes and the St. Lawrence River.

The guide divides the country into five regions: the Atlantic Provinces, Central Canada, the Prairie Provinces, the West Coast and the Northern Territories. Every province and territory has its own capital. Take them region by region: St. John's, Charlottetown, Halifax and Fredericton in the Atlantic; Québec City and Toronto in Central Canada; Winnipeg, Regina and Edmonton on the Prairies; Victoria on the West Coast; and Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit in the North. The national capital is Ottawa, on the Ottawa River, chosen in 1857 by Queen Victoria. It is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the country, and the National Capital Region covers 4,700 square kilometres.

Start at the far end. Newfoundland and Labrador holds the most easterly point in North America and keeps its own time zone. It was the oldest colony of the British Empire. The island lives on fisheries and offshore oil and gas; Labrador, on the mainland, has immense hydro-electric resources. Just west, Prince Edward Island is the smallest province: red soil, beaches, farming, and above all potatoes. Charlottetown is its capital, and the guide calls the province the birthplace of Confederation. The Confederation Bridge carries traffic to the mainland, and the island is also the setting of Anne of Green Gables.

Nova Scotia is the most populous of the four. Its Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. The province builds ships, fishes, ships cargo, mines coal, cuts timber, farms and pumps offshore oil and gas. Halifax, the capital, is Canada's largest east coast port, deep-water and ice-free, and the country's largest naval base. Over 700 festivals are held there each year, including the military tattoo, and Celtic and Gaelic traditions remain strong.

New Brunswick sets a trap the test likes. The capital is Fredericton, the historic capital, but the largest city, port and manufacturing centre is Saint John. Moncton is the principal Acadian Francophone centre. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province, and about one-third of its people live and work in French. The province was founded by the United Empire Loyalists, the Appalachian Range runs through it, and the St. John River system is the second largest river system on North America's Atlantic coastline. Forestry, agriculture, fisheries, mining, food processing and tourism carry the economy.

Two provinces make up Central Canada: Ontario and Quebec. Between them they produce more than three-quarters of all Canadian manufactured goods, and most of the country's factories and most of its people sit inside them.

Quebec has nearly eight million people, and more than three-quarters of them speak French as their first language. Most live along the St. Lawrence River. The Canadian Shield gives the province its resources: it is Canada's main producer of pulp and paper and its largest producer of hydro-electricity, with pharmaceuticals and aeronautics on top of that. The capital is Québec City. Montreal is Canada's second largest city and the second largest mainly French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.

Ontario has more than 12 million people, more than one-third of all Canadians. Toronto, the capital, is the largest city in Canada and its main financial centre. The Niagara region grows grapes and fruit and makes wine. Ontario was founded by the United Empire Loyalists, and it has the largest French-speaking population outside Quebec.

West of the Great Lakes the land flattens out. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are rich in energy resources and hold some of the most fertile farmland in the world, under a mostly dry climate. Manitoba comes first. Its capital and most populous city is Winnipeg, and the province runs on agriculture, mining and hydro-electric power. St. Boniface, in Winnipeg, is Western Canada's largest Francophone community, with 45,000 people. About 14% of Manitobans report Ukrainian origins, and the province has the largest Aboriginal population of any province, over 15%.

Saskatchewan holds 40% of the arable land in Canada and is the country's largest producer of grains and oilseeds. Under that soil lie the world's richest deposits of uranium and potash, along with oil and gas. The capital is Regina, home of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police training academy. Saskatoon is the largest city and the headquarters of the mining industry.

Alberta is the most populous Prairie province, with Edmonton as its capital. It is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. Five national parks lie within it, including Banff, founded in 1885, and the Badlands hold dinosaur fossils. Alberta is Canada's largest producer of oil and gas, the oil sands are being developed, and cattle ranches make the province a major beef producer.

Past the Rockies lies British Columbia, the West Coast, with four million people. Victoria is the capital, a tourist centre and the headquarters of the Pacific fleet. On the mainland, the Port of Vancouver is Canada's largest and busiest port and the country's gateway to the Asia-Pacific.

The forest still pays most of the bills. About one-half of all goods produced in British Columbia are forestry products. Mining and fishing matter too, and the Okanagan Valley has fruit orchards and a wine industry.

British Columbia has about 600 provincial parks, the most extensive park system in Canada. Its cities are the other half of the picture: after English, the languages most spoken there are Chinese and Punjabi.

Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut cover one-third of Canada's land mass and hold only 100,000 people. The guide calls the North the Land of the Midnight Sun: in summer the sun stays up as much as 24 hours a day, and in winter the darkness lasts three months. Much of it is tundra, a vast rocky Arctic plain with no trees and permanently frozen soil. The ground is rich in gold, lead, copper, diamond and zinc, oil and gas are being developed, and Inuit art is sold around the world.

Yukon's capital is Whitehorse. The Gold Rush of the 1890s brought thousands of prospectors to the Klondike, and the White Pass and Yukon Railway opened in 1900 from Skagway, Alaska. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada, -63°C, was recorded in Yukon, and Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, stands there, named after Sir William Logan, founder of the Geological Survey of Canada.

Yellowknife, population 20,000, is the capital of the Northwest Territories and is known as the diamond capital of North America. More than half the people of the territory are Aboriginal: Dene, Inuit and Métis. The Mackenzie River flows 4,200 kilometres through the territory, the second longest river system in North America after the Mississippi. East of it, Nunavut was established in 1999 out of the eastern part of the Northwest Territories. The name means our land in Inuktitut. About 85% of the population is Inuit, Inuktitut is the official language and the first language taught in schools, and the capital is Iqaluit, formerly Frobisher Bay, named after Martin Frobisher, who led Arctic expeditions for Queen Elizabeth I in 1576. Nunavut's Legislative Assembly has 19 members, who choose the premier and ministers by consensus.