A Healthy Environment, the Land and Waters

With an area of nearly 10 million square kilometres, Canada is the second-largest country in the world. While experiencing Canada's vast areas of extraordinary beauty you can explore 20 major ecozones including 5 marine ecozones. The ecozones are an extension of Canada's system of 41 national parks which cover 224 000 square kilometres.

Canada has a clean and healthy environment that is carefully protected. A rich environmental heritage and protecting it is a priority for Canadians. The country is committed to protecting biodiversity and to harmonizing its economic and environmental policies.

In 2002, Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. With this ratifications, the Government of Canada has made climate change a national priority, and is working closely with Canadians and the global community to meet this challenge.

Canada has also put laws in place to protect the physical environment and our wildlife. Canada was the first industrialized country to ratify the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Strict legislation protects our rivers, lakes, forests and coastline.

The Land

The southernmost point in Canada, in the province of Ontario, is about 4,600 km from the northernmost point, Cape Columbia, located beyond the North Magnetic Pole. The country extends 5,500 km from east to west and crosses six time zones.

Canada is a land of contrasts, with fertile plains, mountain ranges, large expanses of forest and, in the North, Arctic tundra. Most of the people live in cities near the southern border. In this area, the temperatures are usually hot in summer and cold in winter.

The country is divided into 39 natural regions, each with distinctive characteristics such as physiography, vegetation, wildlife and environmental conditions. The natural regions are divided into Canada's main geographic units: the Western Mountains, Interior Plains and the Canadian Shield.

Waters

Bounded by three oceans, the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Arctic, Canada's 243,000 km coastline is the longest in the world.

If you were to try to walk around Canada, following the shoreline at a pace of 20 kilometres each day, it would take you 33 years to complete the journey. To go from the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the west to the Bay of Fundy in the east, you would walk in and out of the fjords of British Columbia, along the frozen tundra of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories and across pack ice to take in the myriad of Arctic Islands. You would continue through the Fjords of Labrador, and in and out of every little fishing cove in Atlantic Canada. Along the way you would border three oceans and see many different kinds of coastline. Some of Canada's coasts are dominated by hard bedrock that forms towering cliffs and rocky shorelines. Other areas have lower cliffs made of sand, gravel and mud. You would walk cover sand beaches, cobble beaches and mud flats. You would walk across marshes, sand dunes and river deltas. With so much beauty and diversity, it may well take you longer than 33 years!

Thanks to its countless lakes and rivers, Canada has the world's largest reserves of fresh water. One of Canada's most important freshwater waterways is the Great Lakes System, made up of five lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. The Great Lakes straddle the Canada-US boundary and one of every three Canadians and one of every seven Americans depend on the Great Lakes for their water. The Great Lakes' coastline accounts for 4% (10 000 kilometres) of the total length of Canada's coasts.