Canada

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. It stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, all the way up to the Arctic Ocean in the north. Canada is the second-largest country in the world by area. Only Russia is bigger. But very few people live there compared to its size. Canada has about 40 million people, while the United States, its southern neighbor, has more than 330 million.

Canada has ten provinces and three territories. The capital is Ottawa, but the biggest city is Toronto. Other large cities include Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary. Most Canadians live within about 100 miles of the border with the United States. The rest of the country is mostly forests, mountains, lakes, and frozen land near the Arctic.

The land in Canada changes a lot from one end to the other. The Rocky Mountains rise in the west. Wide flat plains called the Prairies stretch across the middle. Thick forests cover much of the east. The far north is called the tundra, where the ground stays frozen most of the year. This frozen ground is called permafrost. Winters almost everywhere in Canada are long and cold. In some northern towns, the temperature can drop below negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Canada has two official languages: English and French. About one in five Canadians speaks French as their first language, and most of them live in the province of Quebec. Street signs, cereal boxes, and government papers are usually printed in both languages.

Indigenous peoples have lived in Canada for more than 10,000 years. Today these groups include First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. French explorers arrived in the 1500s, and British settlers followed. The two European countries fought over the land for many years. Britain took control in 1763. Canada slowly gained its independence and became a country of its own in 1867. It is still part of the Commonwealth, a group of nations once ruled by Britain. The British king or queen appears on Canadian coins.

Canada is famous for hockey, maple syrup, and politeness. About 71 percent of the world's maple syrup comes from Canadian trees, mostly in Quebec. The red maple leaf on the national flag comes from those same trees. Canada is also home to millions of moose, bears, and caribou. In some places, the animals outnumber the people by a wide margin.