- published: 02 Jul 2011
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Ontario /ɒnˈtɛərioʊ/ is one of the provinces of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province or territory and fourth largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa.
Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay to the north, Quebec to the east, and to the south by the U.S. states of Minnesota, Michigan (portions to the west), New York (portions to the east), Ohio and Pennsylvania. All but a small part of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,677 mi) border with the United States follow inland waterways: from the west at Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River drainage system. These are the Rainy River, the Pigeon River, Lake Superior, the St. Mary's River, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario, and along the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, Ontario to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall, Ontario.
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km2 (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's 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. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.