Geography of Canada Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Location: Northern North America, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and North Pacific Ocean, north of the conterminous United States.Canada is the second-largest country in world after Russia, but much of that land is wilderness and is only very sparsely populated. Canada has the longest "undefended" border in the world with the US. Nearly 90% of the population is concentrated within 160 km of the Canada-US border. Canada also has the world's longest coastline.
Geographic coordinates: 60° 00 N, 95° 00 W
Map references: North America
Area:
- total: 9,976,140; km²
- land: 9,220,970 km²
- water: 755,170 km²
- Australia comparative: slightly less than 1.3 times larger than Australia
- United Kingdom comparative: slightly more than 40.9 times larger than the UK
- United States comparative: slightly larger than the US
Maritime claims:
- contiguous zone: 24 nm
- continental shelf: 200 nm or to the edge of the continental margin
- exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
- territorial sea: 12 nm
Climate: varies from temperate in south to subarctic and arctic in north
Terrain: Canada has a varied terrain. The west of the country is extremely mountainous with the Canadian Rockies being the largest range. The center area of the country is a vast sedimentary plain that makes up most of the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The northern parts of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec are located on a vast rock base known as the Canadian Shield. The Shield cannot support agriculture, but does have extensive mineral reserves. The plains of Saskatchewan and Manitoba are known as the Breadbasket, due to the massive tracts of (largely flat) arable agricultural land. The southern sections of Ontario and Quebec are also home to rich agricultural land that comprises the centre of Canada's produce and dairy farming operations. It is also the most heavily populated part of the country. The maritime provinces have the Adirondack Mountains, which are more like large hills than mountains proper.
Elevation extremes:
- lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m
- highest point: Mount Logan 5,959 m
- northernmost town: Grise Fiord, Nunavut (including weather stations: Alert, Nunavut)
- southernmost town: Colchester, Ontario
- easternmost town: St. John's, Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador
- westernmost town: Beaver Creek, Yukon
- see also extreme points of Canada
Land use:
- arable land: 5%
- permanent crops: 0%
- permanent pastures: 3%
- forests and woodland: 54%
- other: 38% (1993 est.)
Natural hazards: continuous permafrost in north is a serious obstacle to development; cyclonic storms form east of the Rocky Mountains, a result of the mixing of air masses from the Arctic, Pacific, and North American interior, and produce most of the country's rain and snow
Environment - current issues: air pollution and resulting acid rain severely affecting lakes and damaging forests; metal smelting, coal-burning utilities, and vehicle emissions impacting on agricultural and forest productivity; ocean waters becoming contaminated due to agricultural, industrial, mining, and forestry activities
Environment - international agreements:
- party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Sulphur 94, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling
- signed, but not ratified: Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Law of the Sea, Marine Life Conservation
- See also: Canada
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