Canada is the second biggest country on Earth — nearly ten million square kilometres — but if you look at a night map, almost all the lights hug the bottom edge. Roughly ninety percent of Canadians live within about 160 kilometres of the border with the United States. Why?
A Giant Country, a Thin Living Strip
Canada has about forty million people spread over a huge land. But most of that land is in the far north, and most people live in a thin southern strip that runs along the US border from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The North Is Beautiful, but Brutal
Northern Canada is Arctic tundra and frozen ground that never fully thaws, called permafrost. Below that lies the Canadian Shield — ancient rocky land with thin soil where farms cannot grow well. Winters in the north are long, dark and freezing, so building big cities there is very hard.
The South Has Water, Farms and Cities
The south is completely different. The Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River gave early settlers water, transport and trade routes. Around them are farmland and milder weather, and that is where the big cities grew — Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and others, most of them close to the border.
Trade Pulled People South Too
Right next door is the United States, Canada's biggest trade partner, across the longest international border between two countries on Earth. Factories, jobs, highways and railways grew near that border, and people followed the work.
The Cold Chose for Them
So Canadians did not really choose the border — the cold chose for them. And the moose up north? They basically have a whole country to themselves!
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