Canada - About the Country

Canada is located on the North American continent, north of the United States of America, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and North Pacific Ocean. The northernmost point is only 800 km south of the North Pole. The enormous country has an area of nearly 10 million square kilometers (9,976,140 km²) but only 31 million inhabitants. This means only 3 inhabitants per square kilometre, an extremely low value for a western technology country. It is the second-largest country in the world after Russia, slightly larger than the USA. 90% of the population is concentrated within 160 km of the USA/Canada border.

Canada is inhabited by native Inuit and British and French immigrants. The spoken languages are English, French, and Inuktitut. The Capital is Ottawa, other main cities are Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver.

Because of Canada's northern location and size its climate is very diverse, but generally rather cool. The climate varies from temperate in the south to subarctic and arctic in the north. The west coast of British Columbia has the most temperate climate in Canada, thanks to warm, moist Pacific Ocean airstreams. The province's most populous cities, Vancouver and Victoria, enjoy comfortable and relatively dry summers and mild, wet winters.

The most interesting cave areas of Canada are located at Vancouver Island at the west coast and in the southeastern part of Canada from the Great Lakes to the east coast. The longest cave of Canada is Castleguard Cave, which is located at the north end of Banff National Park in the Rocky Mountains. It has a length of 20,718 m [2011] and is 384 m deep, which makes it the fifth-deepest cave of Canada. It is listed as the 210th longest cave on Earth, while no Canadian cave is listed among the deepest caves of the world, which starts with caves more than 750 m deep.

More than 20 show mines and mining museum can be found mostly in the south-western and south-eastern corners of the country.