Canada (pronounced /ˈkænədə/) is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area[7] and its common border with the United States to the south and northwest is the world's longest. The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Aboriginal people. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled along, the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces.[9][10][11] This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament. A federation comprising ten provinces and three territories, Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. It is a bilingual and multicultural country, with both English and French as official languages both at the federal level and in the province of New Brunswick. One of the world's highly developed countries, Canada has a diversified economy that is reliant upon its abundant natural resources and upon trade—particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship. It is a member of the G8, G-20, NATO, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, WTO, Commonwealth of Nations, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, OAS, APEC, and United Nations. The name Canada comes from a St. Lawrence Iroquoian word, kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement". In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier towards the village of Stadacona.[12][13] Cartier later used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village, but also the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona); by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this region as Canada.[12][14] From the early 17th century onwards, that part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River and the northern shores of the Great Lakes was named Canada, an area that was later split into two British colonies, Upper Canada and Lower Canada, until their re-unification as the Province of Canada in 1841.[15] Upon Confederation in 1867, the name Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country,[16] and Dominion (a term from Psalm 72:8)[17] was conferred as the country's title;[18] combined, the term Dominion of Canada was in common usage until the 1950s. Thereafter, as Canada asserted its political autonomy from the United Kingdom, the federal government increasingly used simply Canada on state documents and treaties, a change that was reflected in the renaming of the national holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day in 1982.[19] Aboriginal Canadian traditions maintain that the indigenous people have resided on their lands since the beginning of time, while archaeological studies support a human presence in the northern Yukon from 26,500 years ago, and in southern Ontario from 9,500 years ago.[20][21] It is estimated that, when Europeans began settling what is now Canada, there were about 200,000 Aboriginal people.[22] The repeated outbreaks of influenza, measles and smallpox probably resulted in a decline of between one-half and two-thirds of the Aboriginal population of eastern North America during the first 100 years of European contact.[23] Europeans first arrived when the Vikings settled briefly at L'Anse aux Meadows around AD 1000; after the failure of that colony, there was no further attempt at North American exploration until 1497, when John Cabot explored Canada's Atlantic coast for England,[24] followed by Jacques Cartier in 1534 for France.[25][26] French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal in 1605 and Quebec City in 1608.[25][27][28] Among French colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while French fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana. The French and Iroquois Wars broke out over control of the fur trade.[25] The English established fishing outposts in Newfoundland around 1610[29] and colonized the Thirteen Colonies to the south. A series of four Intercolonial Wars erupted between 1689 and 1763.[25] Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the Treaty of Utrecht (1713);[30] the Treaty of Paris (1763) ceded Canada and most of New France to Britain after the Seven Years' War.[31] The Royal Proclamation (1763) carved the Province of Quebec out of New France and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia.[32] In 1769, St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony.[33] To avert conflict in Quebec, the Quebec Act of 1774 expanded Quebec's territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley and re-established the French language, Catholic faith, and French civil law in Quebec; it angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies, helping to fuel the American Revolution.[34] The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States. Approximately 50,000 United Empire Loyalists fled the United States to Canada.[35] New Brunswick was split from Nova Scotia as part of a reorganization of Loyalist settlements in the Maritimes.[36] To accommodate English-speaking Loyalists in Quebec, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province into French-speaking Lower Canada and English-speaking Upper Canada, granting each their own elected Legislative Assembly.[37] Canada (Upper and Lower) was the main front in the War of 1812 between the United States and the British Empire. The defence of Canada contributed to a sense of unity among British North Americans.[38] Large-scale immigration to Canada began in 1815 from Britain and Ireland.[39] The timber industry surpassed the fur trade in importance in the early nineteenth century. The desire for responsible government resulted in the aborted Rebellions of 1837. The Durham Report subsequently recommended responsible government and the assimilation of French Canadians into British culture.[41] The Act of Union 1840 merged The Canadas into a united Province of Canada. French and English Canadians worked together in the Assembly to reinstate French rights. Responsible government was established for all British North American provinces by 1849.[42][43] The signing of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute, extending the border westward along the 49th parallel and paving the way for British colonies on Vancouver Island (1849) and in British Columbia (1858).[44] Canada launched a series of western exploratory expeditions to claim Rupert's Land and the Arctic region. The Canadian population grew rapidly because of high birth rates; British immigration was offset by emigration to the United States, especially by French Canadians' moving to New England. Following several constitutional conferences, the Constitution Act, 1867 brought about Confederation, creating "one Dominion under the name of Canada" on July 1, 1867, with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.[45][46][9] Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to form the Northwest Territories, where the Métis' grievances ignited the Red River Rebellion and the creation of the province of Manitoba in July 1870.[47] British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had united in 1866) and the colony of Prince Edward Island joined the Confederation in 1871 and 1873, respectively.[48] Prime Minister John A. Macdonald's Conservative government established a national policy of tariffs to protect nascent Canadian manufacturing industries.[45][49] To open the West, the government sponsored construction of three trans-continental railways (most notably the Canadian Pacific Railway), opened the prairies to settlement with the Dominion Lands Act, and established the North-West Mounted Police to assert its authority over this territory.[50][51] In 1898, after the Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, the Canadian government created the Yukon territory. Under Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, continental European immigrants settled the prairies, and Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905.[48] Canada automatically entered World War I in 1914 with Britain's declaration of war, sending volunteers to the Western Front,[52] who later became part of the Canadian Corps.[53] The Corps played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and other major battles of the war.[54] Out of approximately 625,000 who served, about 60,000 were killed and another 173,000 were wounded.[55] The Conscription Crisis of 1917 erupted when conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden brought in compulsory military service over the objection of French-speaking Quebecers.[53][56] In 1919, Canada joined the League of Nations independently of Britain;[57] in 1931, the Statute of Westminster affirmed Canada's independence.[58] The Great Depression brought economic hardship to all of Canada. In response, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Alberta and Saskatchewan enacted many measures of a welfare state as pioneered by Tommy Douglas in the 1940s and 1950s.[59] Canada declared war on Germany independently during World War II under Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, three days after Britain. The first Canadian Army units arrived in Britain in December 1939.[60] Canadian troops played important roles in the Battle of the Atlantic, the failed 1942 Dieppe Raid in France, the Allied invasion of Italy, the D-Day landings, the Battle of Normandy, and the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944. Canada is credited by the Netherlands for having provided asylum and protection for its monarchy during the war after the country was occupied, and for its leadership and major contribution to the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi Germany.[61] The Canadian economy boomed as industry manufactured military materiel for Canada, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union. Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec, Canada finished the war with one of the largest armed forces in the world.[60] In 1945, during the war, Canada became one of the founding members of the United Nations.[62]