Provinces and territories of Canada, matched to countries
Natural Earth’s file divides Canada into 13 provinces and territories. Below, each is drawn at true scale and matched to the country closest to it in area and in population.
Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories; all 13 are counted here.
Population: the 2021 figures Wikidata holds, for 13 of the 13 provinces and territories. Every population on these pages carries its year; they are not one count taken on one day.
At a glance
- Nunavut, the largest, is 363× the size of Prince Edward Island, the smallest.
- The five largest, Nunavut, Quebec, Northwest Territories, Ontario, British Columbia, cover 70% of Canada.
- 10 of the 13 are larger than the United Kingdom (244,000 km²).
- 8 of the 13 are larger than France (548,000 km²).
- Prince Edward Island, the most crowded, has 27 people per km²: 1,519× Nunavut, the least crowded (0.02).
- Half of the people counted live in the 2 most populous (Ontario and Quebec), which cover 26% of the area.
- 2 of the 13 have more people than the median of the 38 European countries listed here (6.6 million).
- 4 of the 13 are within 10% in area of a European country, among them Nova Scotia and Croatia (1.00×), Yukon and Spain (1.03×), New Brunswick and Ireland (1.05×).
Every province or territory matched to a country
Largest first. The matches are the countries closest in area and in population from Natural Earth’s country list; contested places and dependencies are never used as matches. Population is the newest figure Wikidata holds, with its year.
- Nunavut2,080,000 km² · 37,000 (2021)Size ofGreenland0.97× · 2,154,000 km²People ofGreenland65% · 57,000
- Quebec1,506,000 km² · 8.5 million (2021)Size ofMongolia0.96× · 1,565,000 km²People ofHonduras1.02× · 8.3 million
- Northwest Territories1,348,000 km² · 41,000 (2021)Size ofPeru1.05× · 1,290,000 km²People ofGreenland73% · 57,000
- Ontario1,078,000 km² · 14.2 million (2021)Size ofBolivia0.99× · 1,087,000 km²People ofBenin1.01× · 14.1 million
- British Columbia946,000 km² · 5.0 million (2021)Size ofTanzania1.00× · 942,000 km²People ofNicaragua0.97× · 5.1 million
- Alberta664,000 km² · 4.3 million (2021)Size ofMyanmar1.00× · 663,000 km²People ofKuwait0.95× · 4.5 million
- Manitoba653,000 km² · 1.3 million (2021)Size ofMyanmar0.98× · 663,000 km²People ofCyprus1.00× · 1.3 million
- Saskatchewan651,000 km² · 1.1 million (2021)Size ofAfghanistan1.01× · 642,000 km²People ofDjibouti0.98× · 1.2 million
- Yukon484,000 km² · 40,000 (2021)Size ofSomalia1.03× · 472,000 km²People ofGreenland71% · 57,000
- Newfoundland and Labrador403,000 km² · 511,000 (2021)Size ofParaguay1.01× · 400,000 km²People ofCape Verde0.92× · 556,000
- New Brunswick72,800 km² · 776,000 (2021)Size ofSierra Leone1.02× · 71,600 km²People ofBhutan0.98× · 787,000
- Nova Scotia55,100 km² · 969,000 (2021)Size ofCroatia1.00× · 55,000 km²People ofFiji1.05× · 926,000
- Prince Edward Island5,730 km² · 154,000 (2021)Size ofBrunei1.00× · 5,720 km²People ofSamoa77% · 200,000
The closest matches in size
How crowded they are
What the reorganisations did to the numbers
Canada has reorganised its units. Undoing each change on today’s outlines shows what it did to the size and rank of the units. The years are from this site’s configuration; the numbers are added up from the outlines and Wikidata’s figures.
- 1999
Until 1999, the Northwest Territories covered what is now Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
3,428,000 km² added together, 1.09× the size of India. As one unit: 1st of 12 by area, 11th by people with 78,000 (2021). As two: Northwest Territories 3rd and Nunavut 1st of 13.
Beside the regions of other countries
Every province or territory also has a closest match, by area and by people, among the 382 regions of the other 12 countries. All the matches, in both directions, are on one page.
Sources and method
- Outlines
- Natural Earth, 1:10m Admin 1 - States, Provinces, public domain. The 13 listed are all of the features Natural Earth has for Canada.
- Boundary
- De facto, as drawn by Natural Earth.
- Area
- Measured on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outlines, shown rounded. The 13 areas add up to 9,946,000 km², within 0.1% of the country’s measured area.
- Official figures
- Area, population and capital from Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-12. Population is the 2021 figure where Wikidata has it, otherwise its newest; the year is shown.
- Data built
- 2026-11-12