Why 90% of Canadians Live Near the U.S. Border
Gaze north from America across the Great White North and Canada appears a boundless land brimming with rugged wilderness, sawtooth mountains and remote tundra plains. But in fact just 10% of Canada’s nearly 40 million populace resides in those iconic frigid hinterlands. A full 90% instead clusters within a narrow strip along the southern border – often not far north of U.S. territory at all. So what explains this uneven population landscape where 38 million gather close to America while barely 4 million spread sparsely through the other 9 million sprawling square miles constituting Canada? The answers lie in a mix of geography, pragmatism and history that shaped Canada into one of Earth’s most urbanized countries despite its daunting terrain.
The Reason for the Concentrated Inhabitancy
The narrow band of inhabitancy concentrates around vital agriculture. It’s this agriculture that supports food needs for major metro areas like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. This arable land also allows manufacturing growth. Including through exporting grains, metals and lumber southward. This is done conveniently via America’s robust transportation infrastructure. Meanwhile the vast lands further up remain simply inhospitable and impractical for any substantial settlement according to experts. The rugged boreal and Arctic climes found northward couldn’t support development on scales comparing to milder more fertile southern regions.
These basic geographical barriers and limitations help clarify Canada’s unusual contemporary population distribution. It looks much like an inverted triangle on maps. The country’s commercial activities similarly concentrate down towards its more accessible border thanks to proximity facilitating convenient trade and transportation. Of course navigable waterways like the St. Lawrence Seaway penetrating heartlands do allow some exceptions like substantive Winnipeg. However, the majority economic focus favours hugging its lengthy international perimeter.
The Vast Emptiness
This still leaves Canada’s colossal northern stretches that comprise 40% total territory barely populated at all. These frontier areas host a mere 128,000 hardy residents scattered across three vast Northern Territories – Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut. Accounting for less than 1% total citizenry, only aboriginal tribes, intrepid trappers and miners dare reside in remote locales so hostile that surviving winters alone threatens mortality without strict preparations.
So despite romantic notions of unconquered wilds awaiting new pioneers, Canada’s population likely remains concentrated near familiar southern cities and amenities indefinitely. After all, life’s comforts understandably outweigh the struggles awaiting up in those beautiful yet brutally extreme Arctic frontier outposts!