Atlantic Canada
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Atlantic Canada Information |
Welcome to Atlantic Canada
Lobster capital of the world
Atlantic Canada, also known as the Atlantic provinces, is the region of Canada comprising four provinces located on the Atlantic coast: the three Maritime provinces – New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island – and Newfoundland and Labrador. The population of the Atlantic provinces was 2.3 million in 2004.
The first premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Joey Smallwood, coined the term Atlantic Canada when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. He believed it would be presumptuous for Newfoundland to assume that it could include itself within the existing term "Maritime Provinces", used to describe the cultural similarities between Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. The three maritime provinces joined Confederation in the nineteenth century: New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in 1867 and Prince Edward Island in 1873.
Occasionally, the Maritimes is used as a synonym for the Atlantic provinces, but this usage is considered incorrect as the former generally excludes Newfoundland and Labrador. |