Canadian Province Finder
Look up the abbreviation, capital, and joined-confederation year for any Canadian province or territory.
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About Canadian Province Finder
Canada has thirteen subnational regions: ten provinces and three territories. Each has a standard two-letter code (ON for Ontario, BC for British Columbia, QC for Quebec, and so on) used on mailing addresses, government forms, ISO 3166-2 location data, postal-code prefixes, and pretty much anywhere a province needs to fit into a small space. Confusing matters slightly, the territories have their own codes (YT, NT, NU) and joined Confederation much later than most of the provinces did.
This finder is a quick lookup for the abbreviation, capital city, year of joining Confederation, and population of every province and territory — handy for filling in forms, sanity-checking a code, or settling a trivia question.
How to use
Type into the search box at the top. The list filters live and matches against the region name, the two-letter code, and the capital city, so "BC", "British Columbia", and "Victoria" all find the same card.
Use the All / Provinces / Territories chips to narrow the list further. Each card shows the two-letter code as a tap-to-copy badge in the top-right, plus the capital, joining year, and population underneath. The URL updates with your search and filter so you can bookmark a specific view.
Frequently asked questions
How many provinces and territories does Canada have?
Ten provinces and three territories — thirteen subnational regions in total. The provinces, in order of joining Confederation, are Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The territories are Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
What's the difference between a province and a territory?
Provinces derive their authority directly from the Constitution Act and have powers the federal government can't override. Territories are governed under federal legislation and exercise their authority by delegation — though in practice the three territories run their own affairs much like provinces. The territories also have far smaller populations and cover most of Canada's northern landmass.
What are the two-letter codes used for?
They're the ISO 3166-2 subdivision codes that Canada Post, government forms, mailing addresses, e-commerce checkouts, and most software systems use to identify a province or territory in a compact, unambiguous way. ON for Ontario, BC for British Columbia, QC for Quebec, and so on.
When did Nunavut join Confederation?
Nunavut was carved out of the Northwest Territories and became Canada's third territory on 1 April 1999 — by far the most recent addition. The other twelve regions all joined between 1867 (the original four provinces at Confederation) and 1949 (Newfoundland, which spent decades as a separate dominion before joining).
Why does the search include capital cities?
Because people often know the capital before the province (or remember Halifax but blank on Nova Scotia). The search matches against region name, two-letter code, and capital city simultaneously, so any of "Nova Scotia", "NS", or "Halifax" finds the same card.