https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CanadaThe second largest country in the world although with a population about two-ninths of Bangladesh, which could fit into Canada about 68 times over. Canada is a much discussed country on these boards and so I won't make much comment. Indeed I hear there may be an election soon. Instead I will mention a bit about Canada's border. Canada borders only one country (no, it's not Mexico) and it is longest international border in the world. In various agreements following from the end of the War of 1812
when Canada destroyed and crushed the Yankee Imperialists and burnt their capital to the ground to the 1840s the boundary from Lake Superior westwards was demarcated by the 49th parallel north, or in other words, a straight line across a geographical construct. Later, in 1903, the Northward border with Alaska, across some of the world's least inhabitable lands, was set at the 141st Meridian West, making the Yukon Territory-Alaska border an almost perfect square line (it's not perfect because Alaska dips slightly eastwards in its south). On all sides of the border States and Provinces were made many in a perfect square and rectangular side giving no credence to more 'national' boundaries like mountain ranges or rivers. In Canada consider Alberta and Saskatchewan. Or to the east, the boundary between Ontario and Quebec. I mention this for no other reason than to observe that at some point in history some government bureaucracy drew those lines in the map and thus would help shape the fates of the millions who would live in this territories many of whom imagined that government inference should have no effect on their lives.
Below is a map of North America after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, it shows the size and scope of New France compared to that of the English colonies on the coast. What it doesn't show is how much more massively populated already the English colonies were already when compared to the French ones, whose only major concentration was along the St. Lawrence River, mainly in modern day Quebec (although there also smaller concentrations in Acadia and Louisiana). Quebec differs in many aspects from the Rest of Canada, not just in language but also in the inheritance of French inspired culture and in its use of civil law.
