Ecozones of Canada
Encyclopedia
The ecozones of Canada consist of fifteen terrestrial and five marine ecozone
Ecozone
An ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of the Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms.Ecozones delineate large areas of the Earth's surface within which organisms have been evolving in relative isolation over long periods of time, separated from...

s in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. These are further subdivided into 53 ecoprovince
Ecoprovince
An ecoprovince is a biogeographic unit smaller than an ecozone that contains one or more ecoregions. According to Demarchi , an ecoprovince encompasses areas of uniform climate, geological history and physiography . Their size and broad internal uniformity make them ideal units for the...

s, 194 ecoregion
Ecoregion
An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...

s, and 1021 ecodistrict
Ecodistrict
An ecodistrict or eco-district is a neologism associating the terms "district" and "eco" as an abbreviation of ecological.It designates an urban planning aiming to integrate objectives of "sustainable development" and reduce the ecological footprint of the project...

s. An ecozone is a large sub-continental geographical
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

 division with distinct representative biotic
Biotic component
Biotic components are the living things that shape an ecosystem. A biotic factor is any living component that affects another organism, including animals that consume the organism in question, and the living food that the organism consumes. Each biotic factor needs energy to do work and food for...

 and abiotic features in the ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 unit.

Marine ecozones

The Canadian marine ecozones adjoin to each other, except for the Pacific ecozone which is adjacent to international marine ecozones and terrestrial Canadian ecozones. The largest is the Arctic Archipelago, which actually extends to subarctic
Subarctic
The Subarctic is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic and covering much of Alaska, Canada, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and northern Mongolia...

 regions.
Ecozone Area (km²)
Territorial waters
Territorial waters
Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most from the baseline of a coastal state...

Area (km²)
Exclusive Economic Zone
Exclusive Economic Zone
Under the law of the sea, an exclusive economic zone is a seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources, including production of energy from water and wind. It stretches from the seaward edge of the state's territorial sea out to 200 nautical...

Percentage of total area (for EEZ) Percentage of marine area (for EEZ)
Pacific Marine
Pacific Marine
The Pacific Marine Ecozone is a Canadian and American marine ecozone extending to the international waters of the Pacific Ocean from the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon...

102,920 457,646 3.1 8.3
Arctic Basin Marine
Arctic Basin Marine
The Arctic Basin Marine Ecozone is a Canadian marine ecozone encompassing the northwestern areas of waters on the Arctic continental shelf. It is bitterly cold and permanently covered in ice. Polar nights and the midnight sun may last months in this region, which has come to characterize the...

24,997 704,849 4.8 12.7
Arctic Archipelago Marine
Arctic Archipelago Marine
The Arctic Archipelago Marine Ecozone is a marine ecozone in the Canadian arctic, encompassing Hudson Bay, James Bay, the internal waters and some shores of the islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and the shores of the territories, northern Ontario and western Quebec...

2,051,393 2,178,998 14.8 39.3
Northwest Atlantic Marine
Northwest Atlantic Marine
The Northwest Atlantic Marine Ecozone is a Canadian marine ecozone forming a transitional region between the cold northern waters of the Arctic Ocean and the more temperate waters in its southern extent.-Geography:...

536,895 1,205,981 8.2 21.8
Atlantic Marine
Atlantic Marine (ecozone)
The Atlantic Marine Ecozone is a Canada marine ecozone that stretches from the Davis Strait to encompass the Grand Banks, to the Avalon Peninsula on the shores of Newfoundland...

72,144 996,439 6.8 17.9
Total 2,788,349 5,543,913 37.7 100.0

Terrestrial ecozones

The largest Canadian ecozone is the Boreal Shield, an expanse of diverse ecoregion
Ecoregion
An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...

s situated on the Canadian Shield
Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien , is a vast geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It is an area mostly composed of igneous rock which relates to its long volcanic history...

.
Ecozone Area (km²) Percentage of total area Percentage of land area Percentage protected
Pacific Maritime
Pacific Maritime
The Pacific Maritime Ecozone is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone, spanning a strip approximately 200 kilometres wide along the British Columbia coast, then narrowing along the border with Alaska...

205,175 1.4 2.2 18.87
Montane Cordillera
Montane Cordillera
The Montane Cordillera is an ecozone in south-central British Columbia and southwestern Alberta, Canada . A rugged and mountainous ecozone spanning 473,000 square kilometres, it still contains "two of the few significant agricultural areas of the province", the Creston Valley and the Okanagan Valley...

459,680 3.1 5.0 18.33
Boreal Cordillera
Boreal Cordillera
The Boreal Cordillera is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone occupying most of the northern third of British Columbia and southern half of the Yukon. Within it is found Kluane National Park and Reserve, and a small portion of the southern range of Nahanni National Park Reserve. Most of the area's...

459,680 3.1 5.0 15.28
Taiga Cordillera
Taiga Cordillera
The Taiga Cordillera is a rugged, mountainous terrestrial ecozone of Canada spanning most of northern Yukon and significant portions of the border between the Yukon and the Northwest Territories....

264,480 1.8 3.0 9.28
Arctic Cordillera
Arctic Cordillera
The Arctic Cordillera is a vast, deeply dissected chain of mountain ranges extending along the northeastern flank of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from Ellesmere Island to the northeasternmost part of the Labrador Peninsula in northern Labrador and northern Quebec, Canada...

230,873 1.6 2.5 24.25
Northern Arctic
Northern Arctic
The Northern Arctic Ecozone is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone which includes most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the northeast peninsula of Nunavut, and the northwestern tip of Quebec...

1,361,433 9.2 14.8 6.69
Southern Arctic
Southern Arctic
The Southern Arctic Ecozone is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone which spans the northern coast of mainland Northwest Territories, most of northern mainland Nunavut excepting the northeast peninsula, and a portion of northwestern Quebec...

773,010 5.2 8.4 15.89
Taiga Plains
Taiga Plains
The Taiga Plain is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone that covers most of the western Northwest Territories, extending to northwest Alberta, northeast British Columbia and slightly overlapping northeastern Yukon....

580,139 3.9 6.4 6.92
Taiga Shield
Taiga Shield
The Taiga Shield Ecozone is an ecozone which stretches across Canada's subarctic region. Some regions exhibit exposed Precambrian bedrock of the Canadian Shield, the oldest of the world's geological formations...

1,253,887 8.5 13.6 6.97
Boreal Plains
Boreal Plains
The Boreal Plains Ecozone is an ecozone in the western Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. It also has minor extensions into northeastern British Columbia and south-central Northwest Territories....

679,969 4.6 7.4 7.96
Prairies
Prairies (ecozone)
The Prairies Ecozone is a Canadian terrestrial ecozone which spans the southern areas of the Prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. It is a productive agricultural area, and is commonly referred to as "Canada's breadbasket"...

459,681 3.2 5.1 4.49
Hudson Plains
Hudson Plains
The Hudson Plains Ecozone is a sparsely populated Canadian subarctic ecozone extending from the western coast of Quebec to the coast of Manitoba, encompassing all coastal areas of James Bay and those of southern Hudson Bay, stretching to about 50°N latitude. It includes the largest continuous...

353,364 2.4 3.8 11.65
Boreal Shield
Boreal shield
The Boreal Shield Ecozone is the largest ecozone in Canada.-Formation:Canadian Shield rock forms the nucleus of the North American continent. Other geological structures assumed positions around or on top of the Shield millions of years after it was formed. The Rocky Mountains are relative...

1,782,252 12.2 19.3 8.06
Mixedwood Plains
Mixedwood Plains
The Mixedwood Plains Ecozone is the Canadian ecozone with the most southerly extent, covering all of southwestern Ontario, and parts of central and northeastern Ontario and southern Quebec along the Saint Lawrence River...

138,421 0.9 1.5 1.59
Atlantic Maritime
Atlantic Maritime
The Atlantic Maritime Ecozone is an ecozone which covers the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, as well as the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. It is adjacent to the Atlantic Marine Ecozone to the east, and the Mixedwood Plains to the west...

183,978 1.2 2.0 5.33
Total 9,215,430 62.3 100.0

Subdivisions

The terrestrial ecozones are divided into 53 ecoprovinces. These are major geographical units with a characteristic macro climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...

, whose constituent physiographic forms, fauna
Fauna
Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...

l and flora
Flora
Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...

l realms, hydrological
Hydrology
Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and other planets, including the hydrologic cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability...

 systems and soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

s are inter-related. An ecoprovince is fully contained within only one ecozone. These subdivisions were defined in accordance with environmental provisions which established the Commission for Environmental Cooperation
Commission for Environmental Cooperation
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation was established by Canada, Mexico, and the United States to implement the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation , the environmental side accord to the North American Free Trade Agreement...

 in 1994, under the North American Free Trade Agreement
North American Free Trade Agreement
The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA is an agreement signed by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It superseded the Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement...

 between Canada, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. These were needed to address ecological issues common to, or overlapping the borders of, the three countries. They are also useful for national and regional planning.

An ecoregion further divides an ecoprovince, though no ecoregion extends beyond one ecoprovince. These geographical units exhibit regional ecological characteristics distinct from neighbouring ecoregions, though there are typically gradual gradations between them. There are 194 ecoregions.

An ecodistrict is a portion of one ecoregion having a unique collection of landform
Landform
A landform or physical feature in the earth sciences and geology sub-fields, comprises a geomorphological unit, and is largely defined by its surface form and location in the landscape, as part of the terrain, and as such, is typically an element of topography...

s, fauna, flora, soils, geological
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

 composition, and water features. Originally, 1031 ecodistricts were defined, but ten were later removed, leaving 1021 current districts.

Further subdivisions include ecosections, ecosites, and the smallest unit, ecoelements.

External links

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