Canadian Provinces and Territories
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50 free Canadian Provinces and Territories trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Canada is stitched together from ten provinces and three territories, and each one arrived with its own bargain, border quirk or boom. Some were created by a gold rush, some joined only after a promise from the federal government, and one voted its way in by the narrowest of margins. This quiz covers the whole map: provincial and territorial capitals, the largest and smallest jurisdictions, famous landmarks from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, official symbols, and what actually separates a province from a territory. Every question comes with an explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something. It suits students learning the provinces and their capitals, teachers who need a printable Canadian geography round, and anyone who wants to know the country better before a trip.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which animal has Alberta kept out since the early 1950s, making it the only province free of the pest?
Rats
Rats are even illegal to keep as pets in Alberta, where only zoos, universities and research labs may have them.
Q 02Licence plates in the Northwest Territories have been cut in the shape of which animal since 1970?
Polar bear
Polar bear plates were introduced for the territory's 1970 centennial, and the shape is now a registered trademark of its government.
Q 03Which Prairie capital is the namesake of the real bear that gave A. A. Milne's best-known character his name?
Winnipeg
Winnipeg was the adopted home of army vet Harry Colebourn, who bought the cub on his way to war, called her Winnie and left her at London Zoo in 1914.
Q 04Which province, Canada's largest by area, has a capital that is the only walled city north of Mexico?
Quebec
Quebec owes its capital's surviving ramparts to Lord Dufferin, Canada's viceroy in the 1870s, who stepped in to stop them being demolished.
Q 05Which province was the last to join Canada, entering in 1949 after a referendum won with just 52 percent?
Newfoundland
Newfoundland joined at midnight on March 31, 1949, and officially added 'and Labrador' to its name in 2001.
Q 06Which province, the smallest in both area and population, is the setting of the novel Anne of Green Gables?
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island still draws fans to Cavendish, where the farm that inspired L. M. Montgomery's 1908 novel is kept as a heritage site.
Q 07Which part of Canada was made a separate territory in 1898 because of the Klondike Gold Rush?
Yukon
Yukon was split from the Northwest Territories to bring government to the goldfields; about 100,000 people set out for the Klondike, but fewer than half arrived.
Q 08Which city, wrecked in 1917 when a munitions ship blew up in its harbour, is Nova Scotia's capital?
Halifax
Halifax suffered the largest artificial explosion before nuclear weapons, and a Christmas tree still goes to Boston every year in thanks for the help that city sent.
Q 09Which territory, created in 1999, is Canada's newest and largest, with a land area almost the size of Mexico?
Nunavut
Nunavut has almost no road or rail links to the rest of Canada, so fuel and supplies arrive from the south by plane or boat.
Q 10Which city hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics, the only Summer Games ever held in Canada?
Montreal
Montreal faced debts for 30 years after the Games, despite its mayor's boast that the Olympics could no more lose money than a man could have a baby.
Q 11Which province, home to nearly four in ten Canadians, touches four of the five Great Lakes?
Ontario
Ontario is the only province on the Great Lakes, and the one it never touches, Lake Michigan, lies entirely inside the United States.
Q 12Which province is the only one without a natural border, giving it a near-rectangular outline on the map?
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan's edges follow lines of latitude and longitude, so its top and bottom borders are actually gentle curves, not straight lines.
Q 13Which province is the only one that is officially bilingual, giving English and French equal status?
New Brunswick
New Brunswick made both languages official in 1969, and about a third of its people are French speakers.
Q 21Which provincial capital on the Saint John River is smaller than both Moncton and the port of Saint John?
Fredericton
Fredericton was made capital of the new colony because its inland site was judged easier to defend than the larger port downriver.
Q 22Which capital city hosted the 1864 conference that earned it the motto 'Birthplace of Confederation'?
Charlottetown
Charlottetown's conference was called to discuss a smaller union of the Atlantic colonies until delegates from the Province of Canada asked to join and widened the plan.
Q 23Which capital, North America's easternmost city, is where Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal?
St. John's
Q 14Which province was so small when it was created in 1870 that it was nicknamed the 'postage stamp province'?
Manitoba
Manitoba began as a square just one-eighteenth of its present size, and only grew to its current borders in 1912.
Q 15Which city at the southern tip of Vancouver Island is the capital of British Columbia?
Victoria
Victoria began as a trading post in 1843 and sees so little snow that roughly one winter in three passes with almost none.
Q 16Which city, home to a shopping mall that was the world's largest until 2004, is the capital of Alberta?
Edmonton
Edmonton was named capital when Alberta became a province in 1905, though Calgary to the south is the larger city.
Q 17Which provincial capital, known as York until 1834, has grown into Canada's most populous city?
Toronto
Toronto was still the small town of York when American troops captured it and set fire to its parliament buildings during the War of 1812.
Q 18Which city, known as Bytown until 1855, is Canada's national capital but not the capital of any province?
Ottawa
Ottawa was first named for Colonel John By, the engineer in charge of building the Rideau Canal, and was picked as the capital in 1857.
Q 19Which Prairie capital, first known as Pile of Bones, is the only place where the RCMP trains its cadets?
Regina
Regina was renamed in 1882 with the Latin word for queen, replacing a name that came from the heaps of bison bones beside its creek.
Q 20Which city on Great Slave Lake, founded after a 1934 gold find, is the capital of the Northwest Territories?
Yellowknife
Yellowknife is named after a local Dene people once called the Copper Indians, who traded tools made from copper found near the Arctic coast.
St. John's appears as São João on a Portuguese map of 1519, and Marconi caught his signal on Signal Hill, above its harbour, in December 1901.
Q 24Which capital city on Baffin Island was officially known as Frobisher Bay until 1987?
Iqaluit
Iqaluit means 'place of many fish', and it is the only Canadian capital with no highway linking it to any other settlement.
Q 25Which capital city on the Alaska Highway is home to about seven in ten people in its territory?
Whitehorse
Whitehorse is named after river rapids that resembled a white horse's mane; they vanished under a reservoir when a hydro dam was built in 1958.
Q 26Which bay on Nova Scotia's western shore has the highest tidal range in the world?
Bay of Fundy
The Bay of Fundy's long funnel shape makes its water resonate with the Atlantic tide, piling it up far higher than on an ordinary coast.
Q 27Which Alberta park, set aside in 1885 around mountain hot springs, was Canada's first national park?
Banff
Banff was only the third national park in North America, after Yellowstone and Mackinac, and began as a small reserve around the Cave and Basin springs.
Q 28Which mountain range carries the Continental Divide along much of the border between Alberta and British Columbia?
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains mark the boundary only in the south; farther north the border leaves the peaks and runs straight up the 120th meridian.
Q 29Which inland sea, bordered by three provinces and a territory, is named for an explorer cast adrift by mutineers?
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay is the world's second-largest bay after the Bay of Bengal, and Henry Hudson's crew left him adrift there in a small boat in 1611.
Q 30Which peak in Kluane National Park, named for a Canadian geologist, is the highest mountain in Canada?
Mount Logan
Mount Logan stands second in North America only to Denali, and tectonic uplift is still raising it by about a third of a millimetre a year.