Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Jacques Cartier is credited with the discovery of the country of Canada in 1535. The area which was first considered Canada was the area around Stadacona, later known as Quebec City. The name Canada later became synonymous with New France in the 1600's. As French explorers and fur traders pushed westward and southward in their travels, the area to which Canada referred to increased, but specific geographic boundaries were never firmly established. In 1791, the Constitutional Act, or Canada Act divided Canada, also known as Quebec at this time, into the two distinct provinces of Upper Canada and Lower Canada. In 1841, the provinces were united to form the Province of Canada. The British North America Act of 1867 united the Province of Canada (now divided into the provinces of Ontario and Quebec) with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. This union created the Dominion of Canada. At first, the geographic area was relatively small, but it rapidly grew with the purchase of Rupert's Land in 1870 which extended the country to the Rocky Mountains in the west and to the Arctic Ocean in the north. In 1871 British Columbia joined Confederation, extending the country from sea to sea. Prince Edward Island joined Canada in 1873 and Britain handed over title to the arctic islands in 1880. The geography of Canada as we know it today was completed in 1949 when Newfoundland and Labrador joined the Dominion of Canada. The name Canada is taken from the Huron Iroquois word "kanata", meaning village, or settlement.