Comprising of 10 provinces and three territories, Canada is the second largest country with 7% of the world land mass. Extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, Canada shares land borders with the United States to the south and with the US state of Alaska to the northwest.
Canada is a constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada as head of state, and a parliamentary democracy with a federal system of parliamentary government.
Canada is a bilingual and multicultural country with English and French as official language. Non-official languages are important in Canada, with 5,202,245 people listing one as a first language. Some significant non-official first languages include Chinese, Italian, German, and Punjabi.
Canada is an ethnically diverse nation. According to the 2001 census, it has 34 ethnic groups with at least one hundred thousand members each. The largest ethnic group is "Canadian" (39.4%), followed by English (20.2%), French (15.8%), Scottish (14.0%), Irish (12.9%), German (9.3%), Italian (4.3%), Chinese (3.7%), Ukrainian (3.6%) and First Nations (3.4%).
Canada is one of the world’s wealthiest nations with a high per capita income, a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Group Eight (G8). Canada is a free market with slight government intervention, much less than most of the European countries.
Source: www.canreach.com