pop (2000e) 7 722 000; area 1 540 680 km²/594 856 sq mi. Largest province in Canada; boundaries include James and Hudson Bays (NW), Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay (NE), Gulf of St Lawrence (E), and USA (S); Canadian Shield in N four-fifths, a rolling plateau dotted with lakes; tundra in extreme N; rises to 1588 m/5210 ft at Mont d'Iberville; Notre Dame Mts in the S; several rivers flow into the St Lawrence and James and Hudson Bays; several islands in the St Lawrence; S part intensely cultivated; most population in St Lawrence valley; capital, Quebec; major cities include Montreal, Laval, Sherbrooke, Verdun, Hull, Trois Rivières; agriculture, timber, paper, hydroelectric power, aluminium, bauxite, iron ore, copper, gold, zinc, asbestos, textiles, high-technology industries, tourism; first nations include Inuit, Innu, Cree, Montagnais, Algonquin, Naskapi, and Mohawk; claimed for France by Cartier, 1534; province of New France, 1608; captured by British, 1629; restored to France, 1632; invaded by British, 1759; transferred to Britain by Treaty of Paris, 1763; constituted as Lower Canada, 1791; united to Upper Canada as Canada E, 1841; province of Quebec, 1867, with English and French as official languages; founding partner in Confederation, 1867; strong separatist movement emerged in 1960s, but 1980 referendum decided against sovereignty-association, and a further referendum was narrowly defeated in 1995; governed by a lieutenant-governor and a 125-member elected National Assembly.
QuébecQuebec
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| Motto: Je me souviens (French: I remember) | |||||
| Official languages | French | ||||
| Flower |
Blue Flag Iris (Iris versicolor Linné) |
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| Tree | Yellow Birch | ||||
| Bird | Snowy Owl | ||||
| Capital | Quebec City | ||||
| Largest city | Montreal | ||||
| Lieutenant-Governor | Lise Thibault | ||||
| Premier | Jean Charest (PLQ) | ||||
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Parliamentary representation - House seat - Senate seats |
75 24 |
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Area Total - Land - Water (% of total) |
Ranked 2nd 1,542,056 km² 1,183,128 km² 176,928 km² (11.5%) |
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Population - Total (2006) - Density |
Ranked 2nd 7,651,531 4.90/km² |
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GDP (2005) - Total - Per capita |
$274.863 billion (2nd) $36,175 (9th) |
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| Confederation |
July 1, 1867 (1st) |
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| Time zone | UTC-5, -4 | ||||
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Abbreviations - Postal - ISO 3166-2 - Postal Code Prefix |
QC CA-QC G, H, J |
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| Website | www.gouv.qc.ca | ||||
| All rankings include the territories | |||||
| Quebec Portal |
Quebec, or Québec in French, (pronounced [kʰwəˈbɛk] or [kʰəˈbɛk] in English and [kebɛk] in French) is a Canadian province, in Eastern Canada, surrounded by the province of Ontario, James Bay and Hudson Bay to the west, by Ungava Bay to the north, by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the provinces of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador to the east, and by the United States (the states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine) to the south.
By area, Quebec is the largest province and the second-largest administrative division in Canada: only the territory of Nunavut is larger.
The official language of Quebec is French;
While the province's formidable natural resources have long been the mainstay of its economy, Quebec has renewed itself to become a key player in the knowledge economy: information and communication technologies, aerospace, biotechnology, and health industries. This was followed by the addition of the District of Ungava through the Quebec Boundaries Extension Act of 1912 that added the northernmost lands of the aboriginal Inuit to create the modern Province of Quebec.
The most populated region is the St. Lawrence River valley in the south, where the capital, Quebec City, and the largest city, Montreal, are situated.
Climate
Quebec has three main climate regions.
Ten largest municipalities by population
| Municipality | 2001 | 1996 | Image |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montreal | 1 812 723 | 1 774 846 | |
| Quebec City (provincial capital) | 532 329 | 504 605 | |
| Longueuil (Part of Greater Montreal) | 348 091 | 373 009 | |
| Laval (Part of Greater Montreal) | 343 005 | 330 393 | |
| Gatineau (Part of Ottawa-Gatineau) | 226 696 | 217 591 | |
| Saguenay | 148 050 | 153 476 | |
| Sherbrooke | 146 689 | 135 501 | |
| Trois-Rivières | 122 395 | 124 417 | |
| Lévis (Part of Greater Quebec City) | 121 999 | 118 344 | |
| Terrebonne (Part of Greater Montreal) | 80 531 | 75 110 |
History
First Nations: before 1500
Algonkian, Iroquoian and Inuit groups were the first peoples to populate what is now Quebec.
The name "Quebec", which comes from an Algonquin word meaning "strait" or "narrowing", originally meant the narrowing of the St. Lawrence River off what is currently Quebec City.
The first French explorer to reach Quebec was Jacques Cartier, who planted a cross either in Gaspé in 1534 or at Old Fort Bay on the Lower North Shore.
Helen Desportes, born July 7, 1620, to French habitants Pierre Desportes and his wife Françoise Langlois, was the first child of European descent born in Quebec.
From Quebec, Voyageurs, Coureurs des bois, and Catholic missionaries used river canoes to explore the interior of the North American continent, establishing fur trading forts on the Great Lakes (Étienne Brûlé 1615), Hudson Bay (Radisson and Groseilliers 1659-60), Ohio and Mississippi Rivers (La Salle 1682), as well as the Prairies and Missouri River (de la Verendrye 1734-1738).
In 1774, fearful that the French-speaking population of Quebec (as the colony was now called) would side with the rebels of the Thirteen Colonies to the south, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act giving recognition to French law, Catholic religion and French language in the colony; By the Quebec Act, the Quebec people obtained their first Charter of rights.
Canadian Confederation
In the 1860s, the delegates from the colonies of British North America (Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland) met in a series of conferences in Charlottetown, Quebec City, and London to discuss a broader union. The former Province of Canada was divided into its two previous parts as the provinces of Ontario (Upper Canada) and Quebec (Lower Canada). (Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland entered Confederation later, in 1873 and 1949, respectively.)
The "Quiet Revolution"
The conservative government of Maurice Duplessis and his Union Nationale dominated Quebec politics from 1944 to 1960 with the support of the Catholic church. Whether this is a factual comment or simply an expression of the felt change that Quebec was going through at the time, it provides a telling commentary to the widespread change that the people in Quebec underwent during the Quiet Revolution. In addition, the Quebec Ombudsman , Louis Marceau, was instructed to hear complaints of detainees and the Quebec government agreed to pay damages to any person unjustly arrested (only in Quebec).
The Parti Québécois and constitutional crisis
Lévesque and his party had run in the 1970 and 1973 Quebec elections under a platform of separating Quebec from the rest of Canada. Polls showed that the overwhelming majority of English and immigrant Quebecers voted against, and that French Quebecers were almost equally divided, with older voters less in favour, and younger voters more in favour.
Then on the night of November 4, 1981 (widely known in Quebec as La nuit des longs couteaux or the "Night of the Long Knives"'), Pierre Elliott Trudeau met all the provincial premiers except René Lévesque to sign the document that would eventually become the new Canadian constitution. The Government of Canada was accused of not respecting provincial laws with regard to spending during referendums (leading to a corruption scandal that would become public a decade later, greatly damaging the Liberal Party's standing), and to having accelerated the naturalization of immigrant people living in the province of Quebec (43,850 immigrants were naturalized in 1995, whereas the average number between 1988 and 1998 was 21,733). Its English text read as follows:
Do you agree that Quebec should become sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political partnership within the scope of the bill respecting the future of Quebec and of the agreement signed on June 12, 1995?
After winning the next election, Bouchard retired from politics in 2001.
The government of Quebec awards an order of merit called the National Order of Quebec.
Economy
Montreal, North America's francophone MetropolisThe St. Lawrence River Valley is a fertile agricultural region, producing dairy products, fruit, vegetables, foie gras, maple syrup (Quebec is the world's largest producer), and livestock.
North of the St. Lawrence River Valley, the territory of Quebec is extremely rich in resources in its coniferous forests, lakes, and rivers—pulp and paper, lumber, and hydroelectricity are still some of the province's most important industries. Most French Canadians live in Quebec, though there are other concentrations of French-speakers throughout Canada with varying degrees of ties to Quebec.
Demographics
Quebec's fertility rate is now among the lowest in Canada.
Although Quebec represents only 24% of the population of Canada, the number of international adoptions in Quebec is the highest of all provinces of Canada.
Population of Quebec since 1851
| Year | Population |
Five-year % change |
Ten-year % change |
Rank among provinces |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1851 | 892,061 | n/a | n/a | 2 |
| 1861 | 1,111,566 | n/a | 24.6 | 2 |
| 1871 | 1,191,516 | n/a | 7.2 | 2 |
| 1881 | 1,359,027 | n/a | 14.1 | 2 |
| 1891 | 1,488,535 | n/a | 9.5 | 2 |
| 1901 | 1,648,898 | n/a | 10.8 | 2 |
| 1911 | 2,005,776 | n/a | 21.6 | 2 |
| 1921 | 2,360,665 | n/a | 17.8 | 2 |
| 1931 | 2,874,255 | n/a | 21.8 | 2 |
| 1941 | 3,331,882 | n/a | 15.9 | 2 |
| 1951 | 4,055,681 | n/a | 21.8 | 2 |
| 1956 | 4,628,378 | 14.1 | n/a | 2 |
| 1961 | 5,259,211 | 13.6 | 29.7 | 2 |
| 1966 | 5,780,845 | 9.9 | 24.9 | 2 |
| 1971 | 6,027,765 | 4.3 | 14.6 | 2 |
| 1976 | 6,234,445 | 3.4 | 7.8 | 2 |
| 1981 | 6,438,403 | 3.3 | 6.8 | 2 |
| 1986 | 6,532,460 | 1.5 | 4.8 | 2 |
| 1991 | 6,895,963 | 5.6 | 7.1 | 2 |
| 1996 | 7,138,795 | 3.5 | 9.3 | 2 |
| 2001 | 7,237,479 | 1.4 | 5.0 | 2 |
| 2006* | 7,651,531 | 5.7 | 7.2 | 2 |
*Preliminary 2006 census estimate. Source: Statistics Canada
Ethnic origins
| Ethnic origin | Population | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Canadian | 4,897,475 | 68.73% |
| French | 2,111,570 | 29.67% |
| Irish | 291,545 | 5.09% |
| Italian | 249,205 | 3.70% |
| English | 218,415 | 3.07% |
| Scottish | 156,140 | 2.19% |
| North American Indian | 130,165 | 1.83% |
| Québécois | 94,940 | 1.33% |
| German | 88,700 | 1.24% |
| Jewish | 82,450 | 1.16% |
| Haitian | 74,465 | 1.05% |
The information regarding ethnicities at the left is from the 2001 Canadian Census.
Religious groups
Quebec is unique among the provinces in its overwhelmingly Roman Catholic population.
90.2% Christian 83.3% Roman Catholic 4.7% Protestant 1.4% Eastern Orthodox 0.8% other Christian 7.1% non-religious 1.5% Muslim 1.2% JewishLanguage
Quebec is the only Canadian province where French is the only official language. In 2001 the population was:
French speakers: 82.0% English speakers: 7.9% Others: 10.1% (Italian 5.2%, Spanish 2.3%, Arabic 1.9%, and others)Symbols and emblems
The motto of Quebec is Je me souviens ("I remember"), which is carved into the Parliament Building façade in Quebec City and is seen on the coat of arms and licence plates.
The graphic emblem of Quebec is the fleur-de-lis, usually white on a blue background, as on the flag of Quebec, the Fleurdelisé.
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