Orientation guide for newcomers to New Brunswick - Government of ...

Chapter 1About New BrunswickDid you know that ...• New Brunswick is the largest of the threeprovinces on the east coast of Canada.They are called the Maritime provinces or,simply, the Maritimes. The others are NovaScotia and Prince Edward Island. The Atlanticprovinces include the Maritimes and theprovince of Newfoundland and Labrador.• New Brunswick covers more than 73,000 sq.km (28,000 sq. miles).• New Brunswick has a coastline more than2,000 km (1,400 miles) long.• New Brunswick has eight cities: Bathurst,Campbellton, Dieppe, Edmundston,Fredericton (the capital), Miramichi,Moncton and Saint John.• New Brunswick has 748,319 people.• New Brunswick is Canada’s only officiallybilingual province. Its official languages areEnglish and French.New Brunswick is in eastern Canada,surrounded by three provinces and oneAmerican state. To the north and west isQuébec, where French is the official language.To the west is Maine, one of the 50 statesmaking up the United States of America.The rest of the province is nearly entirelysurrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. To the eastis the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The warm watersof the Northumberland Strait are betweenNew Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.To the south is the beautiful but cold Bayof Fundy, nearly entirely separating NewBrunswick from Nova ScotiaCanada, including New Brunswick, isconnected by a national highway networkcalled the Trans-Canada Highway. TheNew Brunswick portion consists mainlyof Route 2, which runs more-or-lessdiagonally from Quebec in the northwest toNova Scotia in the southeast. There is alsoRoute 16, which runs from the southeasterncorner of New Brunswick, at Route 2 nearSackville, to the famous Confederation Bridgeleading to Prince Edward Island.Canada became a country in 1867.New Brunswick was one of the first fourprovinces to join; the others were Ontario,Québec and Nova Scotia. The nationalcapital is Ottawa, Ontario. Canada is thesecond-largest country in the worldin terms of area.Orientation guide for newcomers to New Brunswick5