Atlantic Canada - Definition and Overview

Atlantic Canada consists of the four Canadian provinces on the Atlantic Ocean:

• Newfoundland and Labrador,
• New Brunswick,
• Nova Scotia, and
• Prince Edward Island.

The latter three are also called the Maritimes. The term Maritimes is sometimes mistakenly used to include Newfoundland and Labrador; however, Newfoundland and Labrador is not a Maritime province. The first premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Joey Smallwood, coined the term Atlantic Canada when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. He believed it would be presumptious for Newfoundland to assume that it could simply attach itself to a term describing cultural similarities between Nova Scotia, PEI and New Brunswick. See also:

• Western Canada
• Central Canada
• Canadian Arctic
• Canadian Maritimes

• List of regions of Canada

This Canada-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it (http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Atlantic_Canada).