Geography of Canada

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 sparsley populated. 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

Area - comparative:

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

Land boundaries:

total: 8,893 km
border countries: US 8,893 km (includes 2,477 km with Alaska)

Coastline: 202,080 km

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

Maritime border countries: Greenland, France - French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon

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 mountainess with the Canadian Rockies being the largest range. The center area of the country is a vast sedimetary plain that makes up most of the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The north of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec is located on the vast rocky Canadian Shield which cannot support agriculture but does have large mineral reserves. The south of Ontario and Quebec is rich agricultural land that is the centre of Canada's produce and dairy farms. It is also the most heavily populated part of the country. The maritime provinces have the Adirondack Mountains, but these are quite short and the provinces are generally flat.

Elevation extremes:

lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m
highest point: Mount Logan 5,959 m
- List of highest points of Canadian provinces and territories

Latitude and longitude extremes:

northernmost point: near Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut (83°7' North)
southernmost point: Middle Island, Ontario in Lake Erie (41°41' North)
easternmost point: Cape Spear, Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador (50°37' West)
westernmost point: Yukon-Alaska border (141°0' West)

northernmost town: Grise Fiord, Nunavut
southernmost town: Colchester, Ontario
easternmost town: St. John's, Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador
westernmost town: Beaver Creek, Yukon

Natural resources: iron ore, nickel, zinc, copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, potash, silver, fish, timber, wildlife, coal, petroleum, natural gas, hydropower

Land use:

arable land: 5%
permanent crops: 0%
permanent pastures: 3%
forests and woodland: 54%
other: 38% (1993 est.)

Irrigated land: 7,100 km² (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

Geography - note: During the Cold War Canada had a strategic location between Russia and US via north polar route;