Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. Its border with the United States is the world's longest international land border. The country is characterized by a wide range of both meteorologic and geological regions. It is a sparsely inhabited country of 40 million people, the vast majority residing south of the 55th parallel in urban areas. Canada's capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
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Indigenous peoples have continuously inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years. 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, highlighted by the Statute of Westminster, 1931, and culminating in the Canada Act 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition. The country's head of government is the prime minister, who holds office by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons and is "called upon" by the governor general, representing the monarch of Canada, the ceremonial head of state. The country is a Commonwealth realm and is officially bilingual (English and French) in the federal jurisdiction. It is very highly ranked in international measurements of government transparency, quality of life, economic competitiveness, innovation, education and gender equality. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its history, economy, and culture.
A developed country, Canada has a high nominal per capita income globally and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Recognized as a middle power, Canada's strong support for multilateralism and internationalism has been closely related to its foreign relations policies of peacekeeping and aid for developing countries. Canada is part of multiple international organizations and forums.
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".[8] 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.[9] 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);[9] by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this small region along the Saint Lawrence River as Canada.[9]
From the 16th to the early 18th century, "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River.[10] In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada. These two colonies were collectively named the Canadas until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841.[11]
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.[12] By the 1950s, the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom, which considered Canada a "realm of the Commonwealth".[13]
The Canada Act 1982, which brought the Constitution of Canada fully under Canadian control, referred only to Canada. Later that year, the name of the national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day.[14]
History
Indigenous peoples
The first inhabitants of North America are generally hypothesized to have migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 14,000 years ago.[15][16] The Paleo-Indian archeological sites at Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the oldest sites of human habitation in Canada.[17] The characteristics of Indigenous societies included permanent settlements, agriculture, complex societal hierarchies, and trading networks.[18][19] Some of these cultures had collapsed by the time European explorers arrived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and have only been discovered through archeological investigations.[20] Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada include the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis,[21] the last being of mixed descent who originated in the mid-17th century when First Nations people married European settlers and subsequently developed their own identity.[21]
The Indigenous population at the time of the first European settlements is estimated to have been between 200,000[23] and two million,[24] with a figure of 500,000 accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.[25] As a consequence of European colonization, the Indigenous population declined by forty to eighty percent and several First Nations, such as the Beothuk, disappeared.[26] The decline is attributed to several causes, including the transfer of European diseases, such as influenza, measles, and smallpox, to which they had no natural immunity,[23][27] conflicts over the fur trade, conflicts with the colonial authorities and settlers, and the loss of Indigenous lands to settlers and the subsequent collapse of several nations' self-sufficiency.[28][29]
Although not without conflict, European Canadians' early interactions with First Nations and Inuit populations were relatively peaceful.[30] First Nations and Métis peoples played a critical part in the development of European colonies in Canada, particularly for their role in assisting European coureurs des bois and voyageurs in their explorations of the continent during the North American fur trade.[31] These early European interactions with First Nations would change from friendship and peace treaties to the dispossession of Indigenous lands through treaties.[32][33] From the late 18th century, European Canadians forced Indigenous peoples to assimilate into a western Canadian society.[34] These attempts reached a climax in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with forced integration through state-funded boarding schools,[35] health-care segregation,[36] and displacement.[37] A period of redress began with the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by the Government of Canada in 2008.[38] This included recognition of past cultural genocide,[39] settlement agreements,[38] and betterment of racial discrimination issues, such as addressing the plight of missing and murdered Indigenous women.[40]
European colonization
It is believed that the first documented European to explore the east coast of Canada was Norse explorer Leif Erikson.[42][43] In approximately 1000 AD, the Norse built a small short-lived encampment that was occupied sporadically for perhaps 20 years at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland.[44] No further European exploration occurred until 1497, when seafarer John Cabot explored and claimed Canada's Atlantic coast in the name of Henry VII of England.[45] In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the Gulf of Saint Lawrence where, on July 24, he planted a 10-metre (33 ft) cross bearing the words, "long live the King of France", and took possession of the territory New France in the name of King Francis I.[46] The early 16th century saw European mariners with navigational techniques pioneered by the Basque and Portuguese establish seasonal whaling and fishing outposts along the Atlantic coast.[47] In general, early settlements during the Age of Discovery appear to have been short-lived due to a combination of the harsh climate, problems with navigating trade routes and competing outputs in Scandinavia.[48][49]
In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I, founded St John's, Newfoundland, as the first North American English seasonal camp.[50] In 1600, the French established their first seasonal trading post at Tadoussac along the Saint Lawrence.[44] French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent year-round European settlements at Port Royal (in 1605) and Quebec City (in 1608).[51] Among the colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana.[52] The Beaver Wars broke out in the mid-17th century over control of the North American fur trade.[53]
The English established additional settlements in Newfoundland in 1610 along with settlements in the Thirteen Colonies to the south.[54][55] A series of four wars erupted in colonial North America between 1689 and 1763; the later wars of the period constituted the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War.[56] Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and Canada and most of New France came under British rule in 1763 after the Seven Years' War.[57]
