Geography of Canada

The geography of Canada is diverse. The country covers most of the northern half of North America ( 41% of the continent ) and is based on the area after Russia 's second-largest country in the world.

Canada has a vast territory between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east (hence the motto A Mari Usque Ad Mare - " From sea to sea ") and from the Great Lakes and the 49th parallel in the south to the Arctic Ocean in the north. To the south lie the United States ( Continental United States ), in the northwestern U.S. state of Alaska, northeast Greenland. Off the southern coast of Newfoundland lies the archipelago of Saint- Pierre and Miquelon, a French overseas territory. Since 1925, Canada claimed the portion of the Arctic between 60 ° W and 141 ° W to the North Pole, this claim is disputed.

With an area of ​​9,984,670 km ² (land: 9,093,507 km ² water: 891.163 km ² ) Canada is slightly less than three-fifths as large as Russia, nearly 1.3 times larger than Australia and slightly smaller than Europe. The northernmost permanently inhabited human settlement in Canada (and the world ) is Alert on the northern tip of Ellesmere Iceland in the territory of Nunavut - to 82 ° 28 ' N and 834 kilometers from the North Pole. The North Magnetic Pole is located within the claimed Arctic region of Canada, but migrates towards Siberia.

Physical Geography

Appalachian

The mountain range of the Appalachians extending over a length of more than 2400 miles from Alabama in the southern United States belongs to the Gaspé Peninsula in the province of Quebec, also a part of the island of Newfoundland to do so. The northern part of the Appalachian chain, including the Notre Dame Mountains and the Long Range Mountains are eroded mountain ranges, which are 380 million years old. The most famous mountains on the Canadian side of Mont Jacques -Cartier in Quebec City ( 1268 m), Mount Carleton in New Brunswick ( 817 m) and The Cabox Newfoundland (814 m). Parts of the Appalachian Mountains have a rich endemic flora and fauna, during the ice ages were individual mountain nunataks ( across the ice jutting peaks).

Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands

The southern part of Québec and Ontario, so the lowlands of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, is a plane with a particularly fertile sediments. Before the colonization and subsequent urbanization of the 20th century, this area was covered between the Appalachian Mountains and the Canadian Shield by extensive mixed forests. Most of the forests has been cut down in order to gain land for agriculture, but most of the existing remains subject to strict protection. The relief of the lowlands is very flat and regular. Striking exceptions are the Niagara Escarpment in Ontario ( about the Niagara Falls pour ) and the Montérégie hills in Quebec, standing isolated Batholithe.

Canadian shield

The northern part of the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, as well as almost all of Labrador are located on a vast rock base, which is called the Canadian Shield and occupies nearly half the area of the country. The shield consists of eroded hilly terrain and has a dense network of waterways on. The drainage of the area is via a variety of rivers whose waters is used for electricity generation. The shield is surrounded by a large wetland, the lowlands around Hudson Bay. It is crossed by individual mountain ranges such as the Torngat and Laurentian Mountains. The sign can not be operated intensive agriculture. Large areas are covered by boreal forest, which is used by the woodworking industry. Likewise, the numerous existing mineral mineral resources are exploited. Beyond the Arctic tree line, the region is covered with rocks, ice and tundra vegetation.

Prairie

The Canadian prairies is a vast plain of sediments. It includes most of Alberta, southern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba, as well as the region between the Rocky Mountains and Great Slave Lake or the Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. The mostly flat prairie land is agricultural land in its southern part (especially wheat ), the northern part is forested. Some regions, such as the Cypress Hills and the Alberta Badlands are very hilly.

Western mountain ranges

→ See also: List of mountain ranges on the North American Pacific coast

The Rocky Mountains form a part of the Continental Divide, which extends through the entire continent to South America. To the west, in the province of British Columbia, lies a vast plateau. Between the plateau and the Pacific coast, several mountain ranges, which are combined to extend the Coast Mountains. To the north it close to the Mackenzie Mountains. Off the southwest coast of British Columbia is the mountainous island Vancouver Iceland, surrounded by numerous other islands and island groups such as Haida Gwaii and the Gulf Islands. In this region, the only temperate rain forest in Canada can be found.

Arctic

The Canadian Arctic includes all areas north of the tree line, so almost all of Nunavut and the northernmost parts of the Yukon, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Labrador and the Northwest Territories. It's such a present predominantly ice and tundra, geology, however, is diverse. The Arctic Cordillera, which extends up to Ellesmere Island, is the northernmost mountain range in the world. The Arctic Lowlands and the lowlands of Hudson Bay belong geographically to the Canadian Shield, but not in geological terms. The soil in the Arctic consists mostly of permafrost, which complicates the construction of infrastructure and makes agriculture impossible.

Volcanism

Western Canada has many volcanoes and is part of a volcanic system around the Pacific, known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. There are over 200 volcanically active areas, which extend from the Cascade Range north to the Yukon. They can be divided into five volcanic belts with different volcano types and tectonic events.

The Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province ( NCVP ) was created by rejection, breakup and interaction between the Pacific Plate and the North American plate. The subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate under the North American plate gave rise to the Garibaldi volcanic belt. The Anahim Volcanic Belt is the result of crossing over sliding of the North American plate over the Anahim hotspot. The Chilcotin Plateau basalts may have been shaped by a backarc extension of the cascading subduction zone. The Wrangell volcanic field is the result of the subduction of the Pacific plate under the North American Plate at the eastern end of the Aleutengrabens.

Volcanism, there was also on the Canadian Shield. It includes over 150 volcanic belts that are millions of years old 600-2800 and have become deformed and eroded to nearly flat plains. Many of the Canadian ore deposits related to these Precambrian volcanoes. In the Northwest Territories are areas with pillow lava, which is over 2600 million years old and has been preserved in the Cameron River volcanic belt. The pillow lava suggests that in the early stages of Erdkrustenbildung existed huge oceanic volcanoes.

Hydrographic

Canada has extensive water reserves. About the Rivers 9 % of global water is derived, the country has a quarter of all wetlands worldwide and the largest glacier surface after Antarctica and Greenland. Due to the severe icing during the last ice age are more than two million lakes in Canada. Of those that lie entirely on Canadian soil, more than 31,000 between 3 and 100 km ², 563 more over 100 km ². There are five major river basins; the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

The Atlantic basin drains the entire Atlantic provinces ( a part of the border between Quebec and Labrador runs along the watershed ), southern Quebec and much of southern Ontario. Most of the water flows out through the economically important St. Lawrence River and its tributaries, especially the Saguenay, the Manicouagan and Ottawa, as well as all the Great Lakes and the Nipigonsee. Also of importance are the Churchill River and the Saint John River.

The catchment area of ​​Hudson Bay drained more than a third of Canada. It covers Manitoba, the northern part of Ontario and Quebec, almost all of Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southwestern Nunavut and the southern half of Baffin Island ( fifth largest island in the world ). This catchment area is particularly important for the prevention of droughts in the prairies and for the extraction of energy from hydropower. Significant waters of this basin are of Lake Winnipeg, the Nelson River, the North Saskatchewan River, Saskatchewan River, the Assiniboine River and the Illing Nett Lake on Baffin Island. Exactly on the watershed between the basins of Hudson Bay and Atlantic Ocean, the Wollaston Lake, the largest lake in the world, the course flows in two directions.

The Continental Divide forms the dividing line between the catchment areas of the Pacific in British Columbia, the Arctic Ocean and Hudson Bay. The Pacific basin drains the westernmost province of the country and is used extensively for energy. Major rivers are the Yukon River, the Columbia River and the Fraser River.

The northern half of Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia, most of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, as well as parts of Yukon are drained via the Arctic basin. This is hardly used for energy production, with the exception of the Mackenzie, the longest river in the country. Significant waters of this basin are the Peace River, Athabasca River, the Liard River, the Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake of.

The southernmost part of Alberta is drained by the Milk River and its tributaries to the Gulf of Mexico towards. The Milk River originates in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, flows through Alberta and flows on the territory of the United States in the Missouri River. A small part of Saskatchewan is drained by the Battle Creek, which flows into the Milk River.

Human Geography

Canada is divided into thirteen provinces and territories. According to Statistics Canada, 72 % of the population are concentrated in a 150 km wide strip of territory along the southern border with the United States. 70 % live south of the 49th parallel, more than 60% along the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River between the towns of Windsor and Quebec City (Quebec- Windsor corridor ). This means that the vast majority of Canada's territory was inhabited and far between. The population density is 3.5 inhabitants per km ². Nevertheless, 79.4 % of the population live in urban areas.

With a length of 8893 km (including 2477 km with Alaska ) is the border with the United States, the longest undefended border in the world. The Danish autonomous territories Greenland lies north-east of Canada, from the Canadian Arctic Archipelago - through Baffin Bay, the separated Kennedy Channel and the Davis Strait. The group of islands belonging to France Saint- Pierre and Miquelon is 25 km off the south coast of Newfoundland in St. Lawrence Gulf and has a maritime enclave within the exclusive economic zone of Canada. In 2005 there was a border dispute with Denmark as the contractually agreed limit in the Kennedy Channel runs through Hans Island, thus forming a land border. The dispute was settled by diplomatic means. Similar to the more widely known Four Corners in the U.S. owns Canada near Kasba Lake a point to meet the two provinces and two territories each other.

The geographical proximity of Canada to the United States also led to a narrow political loyalty. The position of the country between the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the United States was during the Cold War of strategic importance, since the route over the North Pole and Canada was the most direct link between the two countries for fighter aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Since the end of the Cold War, it is speculated that the importance of Canada's territorial claims in the Arctic could increase, as global warming can melt enough ice to make the Northwest Passage passable for cargo ships.

Ecoregions

Canada is divided into 15 terrestrial and 5 marine ecoregions:

• Arctic Cordillera
• Northern Arctic
• Southern Arctic
• Atlantic Maritime
• Boreal Cordillera

• Boreal Plains
• Boreal shield
• Hudson Plains
• Prairie
• Mixed Wood Plains

• Montane Cordillera
• Pacific Maritime
• Taiga Cordillera
• Taiga Plains
• Taiga Shield

• Arctic Archipelago Marine
• Arctic Basin Marine
• Atlantic Marine
• Northwest Atlantic Marine
• Pacific Marine

Environment

The per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the country belongs to the world's highest and communicates with the farming and the size of the country in context. According to a study from Simon Fraser University, which was carried out on the initiative of the David Suzuki Foundation, Canada is among the industrialized countries with the worst environmental record. So Canada is on the 28th place among the 30 states studied in the field of economic cooperation and development. In the last place, the country lies in the production of nuclear waste and carbon emissions. It also takes in water consumption to a 29th place. European countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and Germany are ranked at the top of this environmental balance, while Canada, Belgium and the United States are at their lower end.

Geographical vertices

Total Canada

• Northernmost point: Country: Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Iceland, Nunavut - 83 ° 08 ' N, 74 ° 13'W
• Water: North Pole - 90 ° N

• Southernmost point: Country: Middle Iceland, Lake Erie, Ontario - 41 ° 41'N, 82 ° 40'W
• Water: Lake Erie at the border Ontario - Ohio - 41 ° 40'35 "N

• The most westerly point: border Yukon Alaska - 141 ° 00'W
• Easternmost point: Cape Spear, Newfoundland - 47 ° 31'N, 52 ° 37'W

Mainland Canada

• Northernmost point: Cape Rennell, Murchison Promontory, Boothia Peninsula, Nunavut - 71 ° 58'N
• Southernmost point: Point Pelee, Ontario - 41 ° 54'23 "N
• The most westerly point: border Yukon Alaska - 141 ° 00'W
• The easternmost point of Cape St. Charles, Labrador - 52 ° 13'N, 55 ° 37'W
• Lowest point: sea level - 0 m
• Highest point: Mount Logan - 5959 m