Atlantic Provinces are the four Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Three of the provinces—New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island—are sometimes called the Maritime Provinces.
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia form part of the Canadian mainland. Newfoundland and Labrador consists of the island of Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador, a part of the mainland. The Atlantic Provinces cover 208,133 square miles (539,064 square kilometers), or about 5 percent of the total area of Canada.
The Atlantic Provinces have long been a fishing center. The Grand Banks, an area of shallow water southeast of Newfoundland, began to attract large numbers of European fishing crews during the 1500’s. But in the early 1990’s, a decline in fish population led to limits on fishing in the Grand Banks and in other areas of the Atlantic. In the mid-1900’s, service industries began to grow rapidly in importance in the Atlantic Provinces. See Canada (Fishing).
About 7 percent of Canada’s people live in the Atlantic Provinces. The 2021 Canadian census reported that the region had a population of 2,409,784. Most of the people have some English or Scottish ancestry. Other large ethnic groups include French, Germans, and Irish. First Nations people make up 3 percent of the population. Over half the people live in urban areas. The three largest communities of the region are, in order of size, Halifax, Nova Scotia; St. John’s, in Newfoundland and Labrador; and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
