Canada’s geography: oceans, lakes, rivers and climate

The regions chapter of Discover Canada is mostly about places: provinces, capitals and what each one is known for. But many questions are really about the land itself: the oceans, the lakes and rivers, the mountains and the cold North. This page brings those physical geography facts together and ends with a “map in words” you can picture on test day. Capitals and joining dates are not repeated here; for those, see Canada’s provinces, territories and capitals.

A huge country between three oceans

• Canada is the second-largest country in the world, about 10 million square kilometres. “The largest” is a common wrong answer.
• Three oceans line its coasts: the Pacific in the west, the Atlantic in the east and the Arctic in the north. The Indian Ocean is nowhere near Canada.
• Canada’s motto, A mari usque ad mare, is Latin for “from sea to sea”. It was adopted with the official coat of arms after the First World War. Back in 1864, Sir Leonard Tilley took the name “Dominion” from a Bible verse about dominion “from sea to sea”.

The border with the United States

The United States lies along Canada’s southern edge, and both countries work to keep the border secure and efficient. It is often called the world’s longest undefended border. The Peace Arch, at Blaine, Washington, on the British Columbia border near the Pacific, celebrates the friendship between the two neighbours. Four of the five Great Lakes are shared by Ontario and the United States; only Lake Michigan lies entirely in the United States.

The Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River

• More than half of all Canadians live in cities and towns near the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, in southern Ontario and Quebec. This is Central Canada, the country’s industrial and manufacturing heartland.
• The five Great Lakes are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. Lake Ontario, despite sharing its name with the province, is the smallest of the five.
• Most people in Quebec live along or near the St. Lawrence, including in Montreal and Quebec City. Jacques Cartier was the first European to explore the river, on his voyages of 1534–1542.
• “Upper Canada” and “Lower Canada” are river words. Upper Canada (later Ontario) was farther up the St. Lawrence, toward the Great Lakes. It does not mean “north”.
• The national capital, Ottawa, stands on the Ottawa River. Its Rideau Canal was built as a military waterway and now freezes into a winter skateway.

The Canadian Shield

The Canadian Shield is a very old, rocky region that covers a large part of Canada. It is rich in forests, minerals and water. Discover Canada links it with Quebec, where resources from the Shield help make the province Canada’s main producer of pulp and paper. If you see “Canadian Shield” in a question, think: old rock, forests, minerals and water.

The Prairies

The Prairie provinces are Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta: a wide, flat region known for energy resources and some of the most fertile farmland in the world. The Prairies are mostly dry, with cold winters and hot summers.

• Saskatchewan has about 40% of Canada’s farmland that can be ploughed. It was once called the “breadbasket of the world” and is the largest producer of grains and oilseeds. It also has rich deposits of uranium and potash, which is used to make fertilizer.
• Alberta is the largest producer of oil and gas, with oil sands in the north. It is known for cattle ranches, and its Badlands hold some of the world’s richest dinosaur fossils.
• Manitoba’s economy rests on agriculture, mining and hydro-electric power.

Mountains

• Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain, is in Yukon, not in British Columbia or Alberta. It is named after Sir William Logan, the geologist who founded the Geological Survey of Canada.
• In the west, the Rocky Mountains run along the border between Alberta and British Columbia. On the Alberta side is Banff National Park, set up in 1885. Lake Louise, like the province of Alberta, is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, a daughter of Queen Victoria.
• British Columbia is the West Coast region on its own, facing the Pacific. The Port of Vancouver is Canada’s gateway to the Asia-Pacific.

Rivers, bays and coasts

Two more coastal facts: Newfoundland and Labrador has the most easterly point in North America and its own time zone, and Prince Edward Island, the smallest province, is linked to the mainland by the Confederation Bridge.

The North

• Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut together cover about one-third of Canada’s land, but very few people live there.
• The North is the Land of the Midnight Sun. In midsummer, daylight can last 24 hours. In winter, it can stay dark for about three months.
• Much of the land is treeless tundra. Mining for gold, diamonds and other minerals is important. The Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s was in Yukon, and Yellowknife is called the “diamond capital of North America”.
• The Inuit live in small communities across the Arctic, one of the harshest environments on Earth.
• Yukon sits next to Alaska. The White Pass and Yukon Railway opened in 1900 between Skagway, Alaska, and Whitehorse.
• In 1576 Martin Frobisher explored the Arctic for Queen Elizabeth I. Iqaluit, Nunavut’s capital, was once called Frobisher Bay. “Nunavut” means “our land” in Inuktitut.

Climate and the National Capital Region

Canada’s climate changes a lot from region to region. The facts most likely to come up are the extremes:

• The coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada, −63°C, was in Yukon, not in Nunavut.
• Southern Ontario and Quebec have cold winters and warm, humid summers. The Prairies are drier, with cold winters and hot summers.
• In the far North, summer brings the midnight sun and winter brings months of darkness.

Ottawa was chosen as the capital by Queen Victoria in 1857, ten years before Confederation. The area around the city is known as the National Capital Region, which works to protect the area’s historic buildings and natural environment.

Natural resources by region

To see how these resources fit into jobs and exports, read the Canada’s Economy chapter guide.

A map in words, from east to west

1. Newfoundland and Labrador: the island of Newfoundland and, on the mainland, Labrador. It reaches farther east than anywhere else in North America.
2. Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick: the three smaller Atlantic provinces. Think of the Confederation Bridge, the Bay of Fundy and Halifax.
3. Quebec: the St. Lawrence River and the rocky, forested Canadian Shield.
4. Ontario: the Great Lakes, Toronto, Niagara and Ottawa on the Ottawa River.
5. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta: the flat Prairies, with wheat fields, oil and gas, and ranches, until the mountains rise in western Alberta.
6. British Columbia: mountains, forests and the Pacific coast.
7. Across the top, from west to east: Yukon (next to Alaska, with Mount Logan), the Northwest Territories (the Mackenzie River) and Nunavut (the eastern Arctic).

Common mix-ups

• Size: Canada is the second-largest country, not the largest.
• Oceans: Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic. The motto says “from sea to sea”, but Canada touches three oceans.
• Lakes: Superior is the largest; Ontario is the smallest of the five; Michigan is the only one entirely in the United States.
• Mount Logan is in Yukon, not British Columbia, even though B.C. is famous for its mountains.
• Coldest place: Yukon (−63°C), not Nunavut, even though Nunavut is farther north.
• Mackenzie River: the second-longest river system in North America, in the Northwest Territories.
• Midnight sun: long daylight in summer, not winter.
• Upper Canada means up the river, not north.
• Gold vs diamonds: the Klondike Gold Rush was in Yukon; diamonds point to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.
• Regions: Quebec is Central, not Atlantic. Alberta is a Prairie province, not West Coast, even though it has mountains.

For more record-breaking facts, such as the highest tides and the largest naval base, see Firsts, onlys and largests. To go deeper, read the Canada’s Regions chapter guide, then test yourself with practice test 1.