Canada: Physical Geography

Canada is the second-largest country in the world by total area, spanning roughly 9.98 million square kilometers across North America and bordered by the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans. Its coastline, which touches all three oceans, is the longest of any country, stretching more than 240,000 kilometers. The physical geography of the country ranges from temperate rainforest on the Pacific coast to Arctic tundra in the far north, reflecting its vast north-south and east-west extent.

Much of central and eastern Canada rests on the Canadian Shield, an ancient rocky plateau covering roughly half the country that is rich in minerals and dotted with thousands of lakes. To the west, the Interior Plains give way to the Rocky Mountains and the broader Western Cordillera, a mountain belt that includes Mount Logan, the country's highest peak at nearly 5,959 meters. The comparatively small Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands in the southeast, though the smallest of Canada's main physiographic regions, is its most densely populated and agriculturally productive area. Farther north, the Hudson Bay Lowlands and the thousands of islands of the Arctic Archipelago complete the country's varied terrain.

Canada contains an extraordinary concentration of fresh water, with more than two million lakes and roughly one-seventh of the world's accessible fresh water supply. The Mackenzie River, the country's longest at over 4,200 kilometers, drains much of the northwest into the Arctic Ocean, while the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River system forms a major waterway in the east. Climate varies accordingly: coastal British Columbia has a mild, rainy maritime climate, the interior Prairies see a continental climate with cold winters, and the northern territories fall within subarctic and Arctic zones.