10 Fun Facts About Canada That Will Totally Blow Your Mind
Thought you knew all there was to know about the true north strong and free? These fun facts about Canada will have you seeing our beautiful country in a whole new way.
Facts About Canada Most People Don’t Know
Canada is bigger than the European Union
Ever been travelling abroad and had someone ask you if you know Kimberly from Vancouver or Theo from Montreal after you told them you were Canadian? Our country’s vast land area is often hard to comprehend for those who haven’t experienced it firsthand. Here are some fun facts about Canada to put its breathtaking scale into perspective: It’s bigger than the entire European Union (33 times bigger than Italy and 15 times bigger than France), more than 30 percent larger than Australia, five times as big as Mexico, three times as big as India and about the same size as 81,975 Walt Disney Worlds put together. So, in other words, no, you don’t know Kimberly or Theo!
Canada’s lowest recorded temperature is as cold as Mars
One of the least surprising facts about Canada is that it can get pretty cold in the winter (anyone who’s ever had to chisel their car out of a block of ice in the morning knows this to be true). The average low for the month of January in Ottawa is -14.4 C (6.1 F). That’s pretty cold! However, a temperature recorded in 1947 in Snag, Yukon makes the rest of Canada’s winter weather seem like a relaxing beach vacation. A temperature of -63 C (-81.4 F) was recorded in the small village of Snag on Feb. 3, 1947. That’s roughly the same temperature as the surface of Mars!
Learn more about the coldest day in Canadian history.
There are more lakes here than anywhere else in the world
Canada has a lot of great things in abundance, like hockey players, parkas and Tim Hortons franchises. But one of the most fascinating facts about Canada is that we also have more surface area covered by lakes than any other country in the world. It’s true! The Great White North has 563 lakes larger than 100 square kilometres. The Great Lakes alone contain about 21 percent of the world’s fresh lake water. That’s a lot of water—and a lot of gorgeous scenery.
Check out the 10 places in Canada every Canadian should visit.
Canada has the world’s longest coastline
If you walked and never stopped—not to eat, not to rest your feet, not to get some sleep—it would take you four-and-a-half years to walk the length of Canada’s coastline. While our country might not conjure up images of blue waters and white sandy beaches, Canada has the world’s longest coastline, bordered on three sides by three different oceans: the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific. To put that fun fact about Canada into perspective, that accounts for 202,080 of the world’s total 356,000 kilometres of oceanfront property. The only other country that even comes close is Indonesia, which has 54,716 km of coastline.
Ready to explore that vast shoreline? These essential experiences on the east coast of Canada are a great place to start.
Canada has 10 percent of the world’s forests
One of the most widely-known facts about Canada is that we’ve got an abundance of trees, but did you know that Canada actually boasts 28 percent of the world’s boreal forest and 10 percent of the world’s total forest cover? An incredible 362-million hectares of forest and other wooded land can be found across the country, and 68 percent of that is coniferous. The best part of all? Most of our forest land is publicly owned.
Here are 10 national parks worth adding to your bucket list.
Canada has the only walled city in North America
Quebec City has a special feature that makes it unique in Canada (and the U.S., for that matter): it has walls. One of the most fascinating facts about Canada is that Quebec City is the only city north of Mexico that still has fortified walls. First the French, and later the English, built up Quebec City’s fortifications between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Quebec’s entire historic district, including the ramparts, has since been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
Don’t miss our guide to every UNESCO World Heritage Site in Canada.
Canada has the world’s third-largest recoverable oil reserve
It’s thick, it’s sticky and Canada has an estimated 166.3 billion recoverable barrels of it. That’s right, crude bitumen—a semi-solid source of petroleum—is available in abundance in Canada’s oil sands. That puts us just behind Venezuela and Saudi Arabia in terms of proven reserves, and accounts for 10.3% of the global total.
Put your knowledge to the test with our ultimate Canadian trivia quiz.
Canada’s national parks are bigger than most countries
Canada is so vast, even our parks dwarf other countries. Just look at Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Northwest Territories (above): not only is it a sight to behold with massive waterfalls, it’s also an incredible 30,050 square kilometres—bigger than Albania and Israel. Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta and the Northwest Territories is even bigger at 44,807 square kilometres, which makes it bigger than Denmark and Switzerland.
Don’t miss this spectacular gallery of Canadian waterfalls.
Canada has North America’s strongest current
Here’s a fun fact about Canada for all you adrenaline junkies. If you’re up for the swim of your life (be sure to wear a life-jacket), check out the Seymour Narrows in British Columbia. The stretch of the Discovery Passage has some of the strongest tidal currents ever measured with flood speeds of 17 km/h and ebb speeds of 18 km/h.
It’s on the other coast, of course, that you’ll find those incredible 15 metre tides at the Bay of Fundy. Read up on that mind-blowing phenomenon in this roundup of fascinating Canadian geography facts.
Alert, Nunavut, is the world’s northernmost settlement
At the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, just 817 kilometres from the North Pole, you’ll find the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world: Alert, Nunavut. It might not have malls or movie theatres but Alert is the temporary home to military and scientific personnel working in the area. The “temporary home” part will make sense once you realize how cold this place gets: the warmest month, July, has a balmy average temperature of 3.4 C (38.1 F). By January, the coldest month, the mean temperature has plunged to -32.19 C (-26 F). No wonder they named it Alert.
Looking for more weird and wonderful facts about Canada? Check out the fascinating stories behind Canada’s funniest town names.
