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( New Brunswick)
New Brunswick (French Nouveau-Brunswick /nuvob??nzwik/) is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only constitutionally bilingual province (French and English) in the federation.[3] The provincial capital is Fredericton. Statistics Canada estimates the provincial population in 2008 to be 751,527; a majority are English-speaking, but there is also a large Francophone minority (32%), chiefly of Acadian origin. The province's name comes from the English and French translation for the city of Braunschweig in north Germany, the ancestral home of the Hanoverian King George III of the United Kingdom. New Brunswick is bounded on the north by Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula and by Chaleur Bay. Along the east coast, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Northumberland Strait form the boundaries. In the southeast corner of the province, the narrow Isthmus of Chignecto connects New Brunswick to the Nova Scotia peninsula. The south of the province is bounded by the Bay of Fundy, which, with a rise of 16 metres, has the highest tides in the world. To the west, the province borders the U.S. state of Maine. New Brunswick differs from the other Maritime provinces physiographically, climatologically, and ethnoculturally. Both Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are either wholly or almost completely surrounded by water; oceanic effects, therefore, tend to define their climate, economy, and culture. On the other hand, New Brunswick—although it has a significant seacoast—is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean proper and has a large interior that is removed from oceanic influences. As a result, the climate tends to be more continental in character rather than maritime. The settlement patterns and the economy of New Brunswick also are different from its Maritime neighbours in that they are based more on the province's river systems rather than its seacoasts.
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