Canada

Canadians, Americans trying so very hard to be Europeans.

**Canada** is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern border with the United States, stretching some 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated, with most of its land area dominated by forest and tundra. Its population is highly urbanized, with over 80 percent of its inhabitants concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, and 70 percent residing within 100 kilometres (62 mi) of the southern border. Canada's climate varies widely across its vast area, ranging from Arctic climate in the north to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons.

Wait... is that a Unicorn?

### Label

Coat of Arm for Canada

Various indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the *Statute of Westminster* of 1931 and culminated in the *Canada Act* of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.

Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with a monarch and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the Cabinet and head of government. The country is a realm within the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie and officially bilingual at the federal level. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, and education. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture.

A developed country, Canada has the sixteenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the twelfth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada is part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

## Etymology:

While a variety of theories have been postulated for the etymological origins of *Canada*, the name is now accepted as coming from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word *kanata*, meaning "village" or "settlement".[11] In 1535, Indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona.[12] Cartier later used the word *Canada* to refer not only to that particular village but to the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona);[12] by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this small region along the Saint Lawrence River as *Canada*.[12]

From the 16th to the early 18th century "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River.[13] In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named the Canadas; until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841.[14] Upon Confederation in 1867, *Canada* was adopted as the legal name for the new country at the London Conference, and the word *Dominion* was conferred as the country's title.[15] By the 1950s, the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom, which considered Canada a "Realm of the Commonwealth".[16] The government of Louis St. Laurent ended the practice of using *Dominion* in the statutes of Canada in 1951.[17][18]

In 1982, the passage of the *Canada Act*, bringing the Constitution of Canada fully under Canadian control, referred only to *Canada*, and later that year the name of the national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day.[19] The term *Dominion* was used to distinguish the federal government from the provinces, though after the Second World War the term *federal* had replaced *dominion*.